Holographic Display Technologies for Integration into AR Wearables and Automotive HUDs

Computer Generated Holography (CGH) is a next-generation display technology delivering the immersive experience that consumers have always wanted: the ability to cast truly three-dimensional content seamlessly into the world around us.

CGH is a complete rethink of how augmented reality (AR) and 3D displays work, removing barriers to mass consumer adoption. CGH displays provide a vastly superior level of realism in AR devices, while eliminating eye-fatigue and nausea associated with current AR or virtual reality (VR), and 3D products. CGH is the pinnacle of display, delivering on the promise of immersive consumer electronics.

CGH can be applied to almost any display application. The immediate target applications include AR wearables (smart glasses and headsets), and automotive head-up displays (HUD).

The benefits of CGH in immediate target applications (AR smart glasses and Automotive HUDs) are:

• Real 3D display for the best immersive experience with no eye-fatigue.
• High brightness at low power due to the extremely high efficiency of holographic displays compared to displays using LCD, microOLED or DLP.
• Significantly reduced form factor and increased battery life, essential for all day consumer wearable technologies and for easy integration of automotive HUDs.

A key challenge in CGH is the ability to generate high quality holograms in real-time, allowing for users to view and interact with the AR content intuitively, with zero perceived latency. The company's software is the current (2020) market leader in hologram calculation speed and holographic image quality. The technology's SDK contains all the tools and utilities required to build, run and test holographic display systems.

Key features of the technology products are:

• Real-time CGH algorithms - providing a 1500x speedup over other solutions, giving holographic display framerates >90 fps, at high image quality.
• API for easy integration - including a content streaming service, to consume and render content from game engines, and depth-sensing cameras. It also allows for integration with multiple display components, including amplitude/phase LCoS, DMDs and LCD.
• Holographic Engineer Toolkit - allowing engineers to characterize and optimize display system; enabling precise control of laser illumination drivers, display frame sequencing and elimination of optical aberrations.

Hardware designs and intellectual property (IP) - Reference designs for optics, electronics and mechanicals, and full product prototype designs for AR headsets, automotive HUD and 3D laptop displays.

Primary end-applications for the proprietary CGH technology are:

• Augmented Reality smart glasses/ headsets/ wearables
• Automotive Head-Up Displays (HUDs)
• Laptop and Monitor Scale Display Systems 

The solutions enabled by the software development kit are widely applicable in the Consumer, Industrial and Medical AR fields, and could support mass adoption of AR in multiple product areas.

The technology is suitable for different forms of collaborations:

• By offering the key software components and hardware IP required to design, prototype and mass manufacture products using CGH display.
• The company is also interested in technological and commercial collaborations with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), original design manufacturings (ODMs) as well as component manufacturers in the areas of computer systems (GPU, ASIC, FPGA), optical systems and display.

Potential clients/partners can through the use of this technology, potentially reduce development costs for holographic devices, as well as shrink time to market to less than 18 months. Allowing them to gain a technological edge.

This technology is delivered though the company's software development kit (SDK), providing engineers with tools needed to run and optimize holographic displays, along with licensable hardware IP stack, which contains reference designs for optical setups, electronics assemblies, full system specifications.

Beyond the product development phase, the software is deployable for mass production and distribution, allowing fast scaling of holographic display product offerings.

For end users, holographic display is the key to realistic AR immersive experiences with complete visual comfort. These benefits also translate to businesses developing products integrating holographic display systems. With the technology’s API functionality, OEMs and ODMs developing next generation AR devices can optimise the software and hardware designs for the best consumer products.

These unique solutions can better empower businesses developing new immersive devices with the opportunity to gain a huge competitive edge in product functionality and time to market. Early adopters of holographic display systems and associated computational software will be well positioned to accelerate the market and their place within it.