Off the Visor Heads Up Display (HUD)

Off the visor (OTV)ĀHead Mounted Displays (HMDs) have been preferred for military cockpits for decades, where their advantages of no obscuration and ample eye relief are highly advantageous. These advantages also apply to Soldiers, where their other equipment constraints mitigate against near-eye type displays (ballistic eyewear, for example). To date, however, the very high cost of visor based displays such as theĀF?35 HMDĀfromĀCollins Elbit Vision SystemsĀand the Elbit JedEye and their use of a dedicated helmet shell has proved a barrier to migrating the technology to the ground Soldier.ĀCurrent off the visor head mounted displays also have lower resolution, lower field of view (FOV), and more peripheral obscurations than desired for ground applications.ĀIncreasing FOV is also critical in maintaining situational awareness for ground soldiers.ĀĀ What is required is a more affordable, rugged, visor-integrated display system that has performance targeted at the needs of the ground soldier. Utilizing our extensive background in HMD design, and our knowledge of advanced optics, the Merge Plot team is pleased to propose three potential solutions to a low cost, high performance off the visor heads up display (HUD).ĀThe Merge Plot team has existing OTV HMD designs based on microdisplays, larger display panels, as well as a microdisplay based zero distortion (ZD) prisms.ĀThese three approaches are lower-cost, state-of-the-art designs, with electronics and packaging that mount to military helmets.