Army to fund ASU work on flexible screens

Arizona State University said Thursday the U.S. Army will fund an additional five years of research at the university's Flexible Display Center to develop computer display screens that can fold and bend.

The contract renewal was valued at $50 million and follows an initial five-year contract signed in 2004 that also amounted to $50 million.

The university and industrial partners have been developing full-color flexible display screens at a center located at the ASU Research Park in Tempe.

The Army is interested in flexible information displays that can be worn on soldiers' sleeves to provide data useful for carrying out military missions. Flexible screens that can fold or roll up also could have many applications in the civilian world.

The display center has been working with advanced materials and manufacturing processes to develop such screens.

The university also said it has appointed Nicholas Colaneri to be director of the center, replacing Gregory Raupp, who will continue as a professor of chemical engineering at ASU responsible for strategic research and market opportunities in flexible electronics.

Colaneri joined the center in 2005 as associate director responsible for business development, recruitment and management of intellectual property.

Among industrial partners that are working with the display center are HP, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Boeing and Honeywell. Academic partners are the University of Texas at Dallas and Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

Flexible displays are playing a greater role in high-tech products, being used in new-generation portable devices such as e-readers. Eventually, the technology could be used in large high-definition televisions, said ASU President Michael Crow.

The worldwide flexible display market is expected to grow from $80 million in 2007 to $2.8 billion by 2013, according to industry estimates. "The Flexible Display Center could lead to an entirely new industry, one that is grown here in Arizona, and would not be possible without the partnership of the U.S. Army," Crow said.

Chief Army Scientist Tom Killion said the service decided to continue the contract because ASU has been able to assemble a "first class" team of engineers to develop the technology. He said the program also is training the next generation of scientists who will be able to make continuing improvements.

For the next five years, Killion said the Army wants to see the development of color screens - the present generation is only black and white - and a reduction in the amount of power needed to operate them. He said the Army also wants more simplified production methods to reduce the cost.

He called the progress so far "stunning."

Some prototypes are already being made by ASU's industry partners for deployment with troops at Fort Benning, Ga., Killion said. They could be used by soldiers in the field within three to five years, performing such tasks as displaying video of enemy positions from unmanned aerial vehicles, Killion said.

The first displays probably will be in military vehicles, replacing glass screens, he said.