Use of compound microlens arrays as a magnifier in near-eye head-up displays

• Main Author: Park, Hongbae Sam
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2015
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/52863

This thesis reports a new approach for making a very compact near-eye display (NED) using two microlens array (MLA) layers. The two MLAs will work in conjunction as a magnifying lens (MLA magnifier). The purpose of the MLA magnifier is to aid the eye accommodate on a display that is positioned within several centimeters from the eye, by generating a virtual image of the display at optical infinity. While there are recently developed techniques for similar purposes such as waveguides [17, 18], and retinal scanning methods [21], using a magnifying lens has been the most exploited avenue for generating a virtual image due to its rather simple, tried-and-true optical properties; near-eye display systems that incorporate a magnifying lens, whether it is a single piece or a compound, has been well-studied since the dawn of head-up displays. However, magnifying lens-based optics is inherently hard to make compact, because as the focal length becomes smaller, the thickness of the lens becomes larger. This thesis presents in detail the method for making a MLA magnifier that retains a thin profile of about 2 mm in thickness with a system focal length of about 6 mm. Thus the total thickness of the MLA magnifier system is around 8 mm (excluding the thickness of the display) in non-folded optics configuration, which is much more compact in comparison to other popular near-eye displays such as Google Glass or Recon Instrument’s Snow HUD goggles having folded optics. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of === Graduate