A Digitized Water Display System Based on RS-422 Bus

We present in this paper some technical progresses in developing a novel information display mechanism called digitized water display (DWD). In sharp contrast to traditional display screens which use the brightness/color of built-in array of pixels on a flat panel to display information contents, the digitized water display we developed has no fixed display screen. Instead, we use an array of water nozzles to precisely control the timing of water drops so that the pattern of water drops form a dynamic display screen to show text/graphic information. Since such digitized water display can be easily built in large scale (several meters in height and width), it is able to produce quite impressive visual impact. This type of unconventional display mechanism is well suited for various digital signage applications such as advertisements, indoor/outdoor event displays, product promotions, and entertainments. Since a typical digitized water display system requires to precisely control hundreds (sometimes thousands) of water nozzles, the control system architecture and implementation strategy play an important role in its design, implementation and operations. The main focus of this paper is to provide technical details on a new control system architecture we developed based on RS-422 bus and associated control protocol, hardware/software design, and implementation.