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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Phys.
Sec. Optics and Photonics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphy.2024.1440129
This article is part of the Research Topic Freeform Optics: From Theory to Applications View all articles

Compact freeform near-eye display system design enabled by opticaldigital joint optimization

Provisionally accepted
Huiming Xu Huiming Xu Tong Yang Tong Yang *Dewen Cheng Dewen Cheng *Yongtian Wang Yongtian Wang
  • Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The near-eye display (NED) systems, designed to project content into the human eye, are pivotal in the realms of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), offering users immersive experiences. Small volume is the key for fashion, easy-to-wear, comfortable NED system for industrial and consumer use. Freeform surfaces can significantly reduce system volume and weight while improving the system specifications. However, great challenges still exist in further reducing the volume of near-eye display systems as there is also a limit when using only freeform optics. This paper introduces a novel method for designing compact freeform NED systems through powerful optical-digital joint design. The method integrates geometrical freeform optical design with deep-learning of image compensation neural network, addressing off-axis nonsymmetric structures with complex freeform surfaces. A design example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Specifically, the volume of a freeform NED system is reduced by approximately 63% compared to the system designed by traditional method, while still maintaining high-quality display performance. The proposed method opens a new pathway for the design of next generation ultra-compact NED system.

    Keywords: near-eye display system, freeform optics, compact structure, image compensation network, optical-digital joint optimization, Optical design

    Received: 29 May 2024; Accepted: 12 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Xu, Yang, Cheng and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Tong Yang, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China
    Dewen Cheng, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.