Complex Holographic Advanced Optical Spatial light modulator (CHAOS)

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Project period: 01 June 2015   To: 30 September 2016

Project details

Head up displays (HUDs) in cars are becoming increasingly common & have been shown to significantly reduce accident rates by keeping the drivers eyes on the roads. Conventional automotive HUD projection systems are limited in brightness, contrast, resolution/definition, power usage, size & colour variation. The next generation requirements for Augmented Reality & high performance HUDs initially for the luxury car market are very demanding & holographic HUDs provide a variety of advantages in each of these areas. Two Trees Photonics have demonstrated very high quality HUDs using its highly innovative & patented phase only holography, which are in the process of being exploited commercially. However, phase only holographic HUD requires extensive computational resource & resolution is at the limit of current FPGA & memory technology. Additionally, the frame-rate afforded by the existing phase only spatial light modulators is limited by the elastic properties of liquid crystals. To provide a step change in HUD capability the project seeks to develop a holographic HUD that utilises fully complex light modulation (i.e. both amplitude & phase) driven using real-time hologram computation in order to realise the higher performance characteristics needed to enable key innovations in automotive HUD. The reduced computational complexity of this approach will allow the resolution & frame-rate of the display to be enhanced far beyond the current baseline technology. Two Trees Photonics has significant world leading technical capability with holographic display & optical systems. The project will determine the most feasible modulator implementation by simulation & realise the spatial light modulator. Holographic algorithms will be developed to match the fully complex light modulation & a demonstrator unit will be fabricated. The project is initially focused on automotive but provides opportunities in aerospace, medical, rail, marine, near eye devices & augmented reality.