Ultrabright Head Mounted Displays Using LED-Illuminated LCOS

Abstract

We report design and test of a high brightness laboratory-breadboard LED/LCOS HMD system employing a 0.78- inch-diagonal 1280 x 768 ferroelectric liquid-crystal-on-silicon microdisplay and a red-green-blue LED. With an 8x viewing optic giving a 35 degree diagonal field of view, the system yielded brightnesses greater 40,000 cd/m2 (12,000 fL) in color-sequential mode and greater than 100,000 cd/m2 (30,000 fL) in monochrome mode, at LED power consumptions of 1.1 W and 3.3 W, respectively. The illumination optics employed a rectangular light pipe and tailored diffuser to efficiently fill the microdisplay panel aperture and exit pupil. The high efficiency of such image generators facilities display readability in see-through HMDs operating in high-ambient-light environments, as well as enabling ultra-low power HMDs (less than 100 mW total) for dismounted users of battery-powered systems.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA444171

Entities

People

  • John R. Mcneil
  • Mark A. Handschy
  • Paul E. Weissman

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Brightness
  • Crystals
  • Diffusers
  • Display Systems
  • Efficiency
  • Generators
  • High Resolution
  • Illumination
  • Light Sources
  • Liquid Crystal Displays
  • Liquid Crystals
  • Optical Phenomena
  • Optical Properties
  • Optics
  • Semiconductors

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Electronics Engineering
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).