Field Visibility Comparison between Electroluminescent Sources and Standard U.S. Coast Guard Incandescent Aids-to-Navigation Sources

摘要

The U.S. Coast Guard has traditionally relied on incandescent sources for lighted aids-to-navigation. However, incandescent sources suffer from scintillation, halo effects, catastrophic failure, and other problems. Electroluminescence(EL) may offer some advantages in overcoming these difficulties. From approximately 1.3 miles distant, sixteen observers made simultaneous brightness comparisons between EL and selected standard incandescent aids-to-navigation sources for both red and green colors. In addition, a test was conducted to determine if any of several spatial arrangements of EL panels were perceived as brighter. Green EL sources seemed to perform better than predicted, consistently brighter than their incandescent counterparts. The spatial arrangement test indicated that no statistically discernable difference existed in perceived EL brightness in any of the tested panel arrangements.