Foveated Headworn Display Demonstrator

The resolution of head mounted displays (HMD) continues to increase. Higher resolutions are driven by the need for wider fields of view, eye limiting resolution, fused synthetic vision, and increased immersion for improving soldier lethality. As HMDs start to approach 2048 x 2048 and larger, power, heat, and bandwidth requirements become more critical to manage, especially for body worn applications. In applications such as an untethered infantry soldier, increased power, heat, and bandwidth directly correlates to the increased weight of batteries needed to operate a system for the duration of a mission. Soldiers are reported to routinely carry between 60 and 100 pounds of gear despite a 2001 Army Science Board study recommending that no soldier carry more than 50 lbs. of gear for any length of time.  Now that HMDs will become part of a soldier’s kit, it is critical that we make it as efficient as possible. The path to increasing HMD efficiency for high resolution microdisplays is a foveated display subsystem. SA Photonics has developed an innovative high resolution foveated microdisplay electronics subsystem that can take in eye tracking data at frame rate and manage microdisplays in order to keep power, heat, and bandwidth to a minimum.