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Armored Glass for Vehicles Becomes Smarter

3/6/2008

GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems Inc. (Garden Grove, Cal.) has acquired a license from Research Frontiers Inc. (Woodbury, NY), the developer and licensor of SPD-Smart™ light-control film technology. The license grants GKN Aerospace the right to manufacture and offer armored SPD-SmartGlass™ products utilizing Research Frontiers’ patented light-control technology for armored transportation vehicles.

When integrated with glass or plastic sunroofs, windshields, side and rear windows, and other vehicle glazings, SPD-Smart film gives users the ability to rapidly, precisely and uniformly control the amount of light, glare and heat entering the vehicle. Under the license agreement, GKN Aerospace can offer armored SPD-Smart products to numerous transportation vehicle markets including passenger cars, trucks, trains, RVs, armored personnel carriers, tanks, amphibious vehicles and warships.

SPD-Smart armored vehicle glazings provide greater security due to on-demand privacy capability, increase passengers’ comfort, and protect passengers and interiors from heat and harmful ultraviolet radiation. SPD-Smart technology empowers users by offering instant, real-time control over the environment to suit one’s preference or requirements.

SPD-Smart transparencies can be optically clear, block over 99.5% of visible light, and are tunable manually or automatically to any level of light transmission between clear and dark. All of this is done instantly and uniformly regardless of the size of the window – advantages that other smart window technologies, such as liquid crystals or electrochromics, cannot offer.

GKN Aerospace Transparencies Systems Inc. has more than 1,150 employees in six locations around the world and is a global leader in the design, development and manufacture of products in four primary business segments: civil aircraft cockpit and cabin windows, military windshields and canopies, civil and military transparent armor, and electric wing ice protection systems for civil and military aircraft. GKN Aerospace is part of GKN plc, which has combined sales to the automotive and aerospace industries of $8 billion. Following the acquisition of Pilkington Aerospace in August 2003, GKN Aerospace created its new Transparency Systems operations through the integration of the acquired business with its existing transparency activities.

Research Frontiers Incorporated develops and licenses suspended particle device (SPD) technology used in VaryFast™ SPD-Smart controllable glass and plastic products. SPD-Smart film technology was awarded a “Best of What’s New Award” from Popular Science magazine for home technology, received the 2007 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Excellence in Technology for glass, and was also recognized as one of the top technologies by the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Aerospace Engineering magazine. SPD technology is covered by over 500 patents and patent applications held by Research Frontiers worldwide. Currently 35 companies are licensed to use Research Frontiers’ patented SPD light-control technology in emulsions, films, or end-products. For further information see www.SmartGlass.com.