Although we are seeing more and more panoramic roofs on vehicles, this presents a challenge for vehicle designers to provide adequate shading from the sun for the driver and vehicle occupants, for the protection of the vehicle’s interior, and to support fuel efficiency goals. On the flipside, writes Matthew Beecham, this presents opportunities for smart glass specialists, in particular suspended particle device (SPD) light-control technology.
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Since the mid-1960s, Research Frontiers Inc has been developing SPD control technology for controlling light in vehicles and other applications such as aerospace, architecture, marine, eyewear, and displays, and holds over 500 patents and patent applications on SPD technology. A thin film is sandwiched inside the glass that conducts a small amount of electricity. As electricity passes through the film, microscopic light-blocking suspended particles align or randomly orient, allowing more or less light to pass through glazings such as sunroofs, sidelites, sunvisors and other types of windows. This means that vehicle occupants can simply turn a dial to regulate the amount of light entering the vehicle, thus eliminating the need for a sliding shade panel altogether.
Compared to other transparency control devices – such as those based on electrochromic or liquid crystal technology – SPD-SmartGlass is claimed to be cheaper per square foot, reacts faster and switches uniformly without an “iris effect” regardless of panel size. It can be very dark (blocking over 99.5% of the light), clear, or anywhere in between. Electrochromic technology can still be tuned but, because of its slow and non-uniform switching, not to the extent that SPDs can.
Another advantage is that SPD is a film-based technology. That means it can be easily and inexpensively shipped all over the world. It also means that it can be applied to plastic as well as glass, and it can be applied to curved as well as flat surfaces. In the default state, with the power off, the window is dark and thus would not be able to form the main component of a windscreen (perhaps the upper band strip but not the entire windscreen). But when a motorist parks their car, SPD-SmartGlass would be in the ‘off’ state, an advantage for sunroof applications as it is in its maximum solar heat gain blocking state and no power is being drained from the battery while the car is parked. Power consumption in the fully clear state is minimal also, with SPD windows consuming only 0.06 watts per square foot.
There are plenty of licensees for this technology, too. Research Frontiers licenses its technology to 34 companies (that’s up from eight in 1999), including a number of auto-glazing manufacturers and suppliers, namely: AGC Automotive Americas; American Glass Products (AGP); Glaverbel SA; Isoclima SpA; Nippon Sheet Glass; Pilkington; and Saint-Gobain Glass France SA. In May 2006, Asahi Glass Co became the most recent licensee of Research Frontiers’ SPD-Smart light-control film technology for various automotive glass products, including sunroofs and other glass systems.
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By GlobalDataWhile technical advances in vehicle glazing are occurring all the time, we asked Joseph M. Harary, president of Research Frontiers Inc, if there have been any recent advances that have made SPD technology more viable. For example, it appears that encapsulated suspended particle device technology is developing rapidly. To what extent is the development of encapsulation beginning to make SPD technology more viable for large-area glazing applications? He said: “Hitachi Chemical’s announcement earlier this year that they were in commercial production of SPD film was a major event. Out of the switchable glazing technologies, one of the many advantages of SPD is the fact that it is a film-based technology; it doesn’t need to be coated onto glass in the way some other technologies do. And because it is a film-based technology and produced on wide-width coaters, the size of the glazing is really not an issue. Basically, any skilled laminator that can produce laminated glass or is familiar with working with LC film can also produce SPD laminated glass. It is just a different interlayer. So that is all feasible. One additional advantage of SPD is that it can be laminated into plastic – polycarbonate – and there is a small but growing trend towards the use of polycarbonate glazing, particularly because of weight savings. So those advantages, coupled with the advantages of SPD, are a pretty good combination.”
Outside of the automotive arena, Harary believes that the opportunities for the use of SPD are immense. “SPD windows have already been installed in a number of aircraft applications as retrofit items. In addition to the aftermarket, Raytheon Aircraft announced this year that they were offering SPD-Smart window shades for all models of their King Air aircraft, and we expect other OEMS to follow suit. Marine glass will also be a large market and there is of course tremendous interest among the architectural community. Just to give you an example, Research Frontiers has presented to over 100 of the international premier architectural firms and there is a great deal of interest. In addition, the interest we received through our website is growing at a pretty dramatic rate. Among those that are specifying projects for smart glass, the percentage has really gone up to well over 90%. You are beginning to see architectural applications coming online.”
So what does the future hold? Well, in addition to continued penetration of the architectural, aerospace and marine markets, we would expect to see a number of switchable glazing applications in the automotive arena, including more use of SPD sunroofs, SPD rearview mirrors and SPD visors. Toyota’s Hino S’elega bus introduced at the Tokyo motor show and AGP’s introduction of their VarioPlus Sky SPD-Smart automotive window and sunroofs at the SEMA show are just early examples of what is to come. It’s a window of opportunity.
Matthew Beecham
