Industrial Development and technological realization of vr/ar

Since last year , The concept of the metauniverse stimulated VR/AR The industry erupted again , Many Internet leading enterprises have re regarded this field as a key development project .VR/AR It will become the next generation of human-computer interaction interface , It has become a common consensus in the Internet .

VR/AR From the perspective of user experience , There are great similarities between the two , Are to achieve the integration of virtual and reality , Enhance user immersion , This is also an important reason why we usually talk about them together . But from a technical point of view , There is a big difference between the two , also , In terms of the difficulty of technical implementation ,AR The product is currently in a conceptual stage , and VR Has been relatively mature .

VR At present, the device is usually composed of a head mounted display device and a handle , By calculating 、 Show 、 Sensing and other technologies realize user vision 、 auditory , Even some tactile feedback , Let users have a higher sense of immersion in the virtual world .

VR The head display is from the early VR The box , Develop to VR Helmet , Now common VR Integrated machine , A relatively complete industrial chain has been formed . current VR In fact, the industrial chain has a high degree of overlap with mobile intelligent terminals such as mobile phones , Whether it's a monitor 、 optical material 、 sensor , Or motherboard 、 chip 、 Batteries, etc , Almost from the same source .

Today, VR The hot products in the all-in-one machine are made by Meta（ primary Facebook） On 2020 Published in Oculus quest 2 Integrated machine , Its market share is 2021 Up to 75%. It is worth mentioning that ,Meta After the change of name , Announce the march into the meta universe , The focus of the company is VR/AR field .

2022 Year of VR The market has ushered in a wave of technological upgrading .Pancake Short focus optics is considered VR The upgrading direction of the next generation of devices .VR Miniaturization of equipment 、 Convenience has always been the direction of developers , But as the VR Reduction of equipment , optics 、 structure 、 Functions and other aspects are facing challenges , Among them, optics is a core content .Pancake Short focal optics is a short focal scheme using folded optical paths , Further make VR The device becomes thinner . With the existing technical force , Can be reduced to the current hot sales Quest 2 Of 1/4 size , The weight of head display equipment can be reduced to 100 g .

According to the digitimes analysis ,Meta The next generation of VR The product will be launched next year , The core is to adopt Pancake Optical modules and more sensors are upgraded . in addition , Apple is also expected to launch a composite Fresnel lens and Pancake New optical scheme VR product .

On the other hand , Despite the current AR Product development faces bottlenecks , But it is not without progress . at present ,Micro-LED Breakthroughs in micro display technology and optical module technology of optical waveguides have been seen AR The direction of further product upgrading .

Micro-LED Micro display technology is a combination of traditional LED Arrayed 、 Ultra small spacing formed after miniaturization LED, At present, the smallest size can be reduced to micron （ about 50 micron , Original only LED Of 1%）

However, optical waveguide technology is thin and has high penetrability to external light , It's also thought to be AR The most suitable solution for the product . In fact, optical waveguide technology is not a new concept , The well-known optical fiber transmission adopts this technology . At present, the mainstream AR The optical waveguide technology adopted by the equipment mainly includes ：

By the Israeli company Lumus Proposed geometry / Arrayed optical waveguide . This technology can only achieve one-dimensional pupil dilation , By copying multiple copies of the image horizontally , So that the eyes can see the image when moving laterally ;

from digilens and WaveOptics The relief grating diffraction optical waveguide . In this way, images can be propagated from two directions through gratings , So as to achieve two-dimensional pupil dilation ;

The last kind is called Bragg grating diffraction optical waveguide （ Holographic grating waveguide ） Technology . This technique uses optical holography to record the interference fringes of a point light source on a thin film of recording material , With thin volume , Light weight , And it can record multiple holograms at the same time . But corresponding , There are also some difficulties in the implementation of this technology , At present, few companies use this technology ,Digilens、Sony、 And has been acquired by Apple Akonia Is one of the more representative companies .