Sunnyvale, CA – September 16, 2020: DigiLens Inc., an innovator in holographic waveguide display technology for extended reality (XR), today announced the availability of its CrystalClear™ Augmented Reality (AR) Heads-up Display (HUD), boasting the largest field-of-view (FOV) HUD up to 15° x 5° and packaged into approximately 5 liters of volume. This is a size improvement of more than three times when compared to any of the other best-in-class HUDs in the market today. This ultra-compact AR HUD can be inserted into nearly any dashboard and allows the HUD image to be displayed at infinity making “at-a-glance” extended reality driving experiences compatible with any standard vehicle and enhancing overall safety by delivering relevant information that is superimposed on the real-world in the driver’s line of sight.

Most cars today have a thin dash that doesn’t allow a large volume HUD to reside beneath the dashboard. Conventional mirror-based HUDs and DMD-based AR HUDs support safety with real-world view assisted navigation but are much larger than DigiLens’ waveguide-based HUDs. The CrystalClear AR HUD is based on DigiLens’ proprietary photopolymer material to enable a thinner multi-layer waveguide with a light engine to direct the light from underneath with maximum efficiency for a full HUD display solution.

“HUD volume, field of view and the image location have been the biggest barriers to adoption of AR assisted driving in automotive,” said Chris Pickett, CEO of DigiLens. “Our technology uses integrated diffractive optics within a flat waveguide embedded in the dashboard in order to compress the volume of the HUD and fit into virtually any automobile dashboard. We have, by far, the widest FOV HUD available on the market and the HUD image is displayed at infinity thereby giving meaningful and contextual visual data that can be attached to the world in front of a driver, so the driver never has to take their eyes off the road. Our waveguide technology is the only solution that can produce such a result. DigiLens appreciates to work on the CrystalClear™ AR HUD with the automotive HUD market leader Continental AG, bringing this technology to market.”

CrystalClear AR HUD industry leading specs include:

• System Field-of-View (FOV): up to 15° horizontal x 5° vertical
• Luminance: 12,000 nits
• Virtual Image Distance: far field, up to infinity for real world overlay
• Volume: approximately 5 liters

DigiLens waveguides incorporate a correction prescription for the vehicle’s windshield, allowing HUDs to be used with conventional windshield designs, without the need for special films or coatings. Collimated light from a small projector, with a small diameter pupil, is injected into the waveguide by means of a high efficiency diffractive input coupling grating. The light coupled into the waveguide propagates inside the waveguide using total internal reflection (TIR). The diffractive structures of the DigiLens waveguide efficiently expand the compact projector pupil in 2-dimensions to form a large comfortable eyebox at the drivers viewing position. The corrective windshield prescription is optically written into the holographic diffraction grating, thereby avoiding complex and bulky corrective optical components.

The system provides high-definition images that are focused at infinity to allow the digital image presented by the AR HUD as a superimposed overlay in focus with real objects at distance in front of the driver. This prevents the need for the driver to re-adjust focus to read information, which is traditionally presented in the drivers near field on the instrument panel. CrystalClear’s infinity focus maximizes safety by ensuring the driver’s attention is fully on the real world.

With DigiLens intuitive driver support, embedding the augmentations in the real world makes the driver immediately understand where their attention is required and why. Your eyes are your biggest distraction, not your brain, so virtual turn-by-turn navigation signs on the road make driving safer and easier. Automotive innovation typically runs ten plus years out. DigiLens technology catapults this forward, drastically bridging the gap between today and the self-driving cars of tomorrow.

Automotive and industrial partners can integrate DigiLens’ CrystalClear AR HUD into their different vehicle models today. Contact DigiLens to find out more Sales@DigiLens.com