Development of an immersive virtual reality head-mounted display with high performance

Area of Science:

• Optics
• Virtual Reality Technology
• Display Engineering

Background:

• Immersive virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) face a challenge balancing wide field of view (FOV) with high visual resolution.
• Existing HMDs often compromise on either FOV or resolution, limiting the quality of immersive experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and develop a novel HMD monocular optical system that achieves both a large FOV and high resolution.
• To engineer a binocular HMD system with adjustable interpupillary distance and address binocular vision inconsistencies.
• To validate the performance of the developed HMD through distortion measurement and correction.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a monocular optical system using aspheric technology and CNC grinding with a high-resolution LCD.
• Development of a binocular optical system with adjustable interpupillary distance and partially overlapping FOVs.
• Implementation of a fast image processor-centered LCD driver and an image preprocessing system for binocular consistency.
• Distortion measurement and correction using a calibration model for reverse rotations and translations.

Main Results:

• A high-performance, not-fully-transparent VR HMD was successfully developed.
• The HMD features a high resolution of 1920×1080 and a large FOV of 141.6°(H)×73.08°(V).
• Achieved an average angular resolution of 18.6 pixels/degree across the full FOV.

Conclusions:

• The developed VR HMD effectively resolves the contradiction between large FOV and high resolution.
• The device enables high-quality VR simulations and is suitable for advanced training in fields like aeronautics and astronautics.
• The HMD demonstrates significant practical value for demanding simulation and training applications.