The long-established AR Alliance has a new working group: Laser Display for AR, chaired by Barry Silverstein of Meta Reality Labs. At the recent Frontiers in Optics and Laser Science conference, Silverstein organized the work group’s inaugural meeting – an impressive affair with 56 companies represented and perhaps 100 people in the room. The conference also featured an AR/VR track with papers on the latest developments in the laser-based AR ecosystem.

Silverstein contends that the pieces for laser-based AR are now maturing to the point that it is time to focus on their development to help speed commercialization through coordinated group actions and to counter the other paths companies and investors are pursuing (think microLED). AR development companies are not asking for laser-based solutions, but that does not mean they aren’t wanted and necessary, contends Silverstein.

Silverstein then showed what he thinks should be the work group’s mission statement:

Our mission is to unite industry and academic partners to advance laser display technologies for AR. We will identify and address technical and business barriers through collaboration, accelerating commercialization and innovation while reducing costs and risks.

The AR glasses market is now posed for growth. The arrival of useful AI and the launch of the Meta Ray-Ban glasses are the ignition points. Google/Magic Leap and Samsung are fast following with models, but none are laser-based display solutions – yet. Silverstein, and perhaps those attending, believe that laser-based AR offers the best long-term solution to managing the complex trade-offs with the size, weight, power and cost of the display and system solution.

LCOS is a popular AR display solution now with lots of interest in microLED, but will laser-based be the long-term solution? Source: Meta

Laser sources are polarized and offer a small etendue – an advantage over wide broadband, unpolarized, large etendue sources. If managed properly, laser sources can potentially utilize new meta surfaces, diffractive optics, and polarization to offer more efficient and compact solutions. And they might provide paths to address challenges with ghosting, light leakage and vergence/accommodation – all issues with current systems.

Silverstein thinks that as the FOV gets larger and luminance requirements inch up for outdoor use, microLEDs solutions won’t be able to compete on a power efficiency basis, opening the door for laser-based solutions.

Near term, lased-based LCOS and improved LBS solutions may find commercial success. But in the longer term, holographic and steered retinal projection could be adopted. Silverstein says the laser display work group needs to consider all these solutions.

He then laid out what he considers the primary roadblocks and challenges that laser-based AR solution faced. These include:

• Market confusion – Laser displays are hard to explain because there is not one laser display architecture. Each category has its advantages and disadvantages, so the work group needs to clarify the architectural product fit and optimize efforts and market understanding to providing clear value propositions for what is close to ready today at the system level.
• Fragmentation – Inside this community there is fragmentation of knowledge, IP, system understanding and messaging. This causes incomplete solutions.
• Bad demonstrations – Demonstrations need to be high quality at the system level to prove what’s possible. Companies need to know what’s working well and what’s not and have a credible path for what’s not.
• System Level Understanding and Data – Having a good component is not enough. Customers need accurate system level performance measurements and documentation that can be validated. Not every solution fits every application, so be clear on the use case. Customers need cost analysis too.
• Continuity of Investments – Laser displays are not on the next product cycle. That has been incorrectly perceived as that the game is over. This negative perception has mostly been fueled by the poor image quality of the Hololens 2 which featured a laser beam scanning (LBS) image engine and waveguide solution. Laser display opportunities have actually just begun, which is the message investors need to hear.
• Lack of Standardization – There are too many different solutions chasing too many different applications – all with different specs and interface requirements. The work group should seek to narrow the asks and standardize for each other to break the quality demonstration barrier. Customization can come after proof of concept.
• Incomplete Supply Chains – Customers want solutions, not piece parts or technologies. The work group should seek to create partnerships with established suppliers that can scale as necessary.
• Standardized Metrology and Performance Data – Radiometric measurements of AR solutions are hard with the same data sometimes interpreted in different ways. Making it harder is that what the eye sees is not always what instruments measure. Standardized display evaluations are needed.

With this background, Silverstein then asked all participants to list the challenges that they see laser-based AR facing. These were then reviewed and discussed by the group with the aim of forming subgroups to address these challenges. Just after the meeting, a preliminary list of subgroups was circulated to participants with the goal that they would join the AR Alliance and choose to work on or chair one of the subgroups. The tentative subgroups include:

• Systems Architecture Comparisons for Product Market Fit
• Waveguide Standards for Architectural Demonstrations
• Laser Standards for Architectural Demonstrations
• System Integration Challenges, technologies, partnering and cost analysis
• Working Group System Education
• Marketing, publicity, competitive assessment, and investment support
• Safety Approval Process and Communication
• Managing Laser System Level Artifacts and Perception Studies

Focusing on the development and commercialization of laser-based AR system will be a challenge, but one many companies seem to be supporting. Meta, Google and Magic Leap are members of the AR Alliance, but only Meta is officially a member of the Laser Display for AR workgroup as of this writing. This is likely to change as members sign up and take on the working group tasks.

Meta is all in and has noted that most of their development activity is around laser-based solutions, so it is in their interest to see this initiative succeed, and hopefully, raise all boats.

This article first appeared on https://sid.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/do/10.1002/0050124/full/