Untethered, Wide Field HMD Using FLC Display

Untethered head mounted displays must be battery operated to achieve the benefits of mobility expected for them. Thus, the display element inside should operate at low voltage and consume small amounts of power to provide maximum battery life. Battery operation also demands that the display element make the most efficient possible use of electrically produced light which illuminates the display. Displaytech's FLC/VLSI display provides a reflective display that uses ferroelectric liquid crystals and makes exceptionally good use of the electrical power it consumes and the light within the display. It is presently unclear what maximum field of view is feasible and how many gray levels can be attained for very high resolution pixel arrays. The proposed Phase I effort will identify and evaluate the optical, electronic and software techniques that produce the best feasible performance for wide field, high resolution, untethered operation of a HMD incorporating the FLC/VLSI display.