Present and Future of Everyday-Use Augmented Reality Eyeglasses.

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) is emerging as the next ubiquitous wearable technology and is expected to significantly transform various industries in the near future. There has been tremendous investment in developing AR eyeglasses in recent years, including about $45 billion investment by Meta since 2021. Despite such efforts, the existing displays are very bulky in form factor and there has not yet been a socially acceptable eyeglasses-style AR display. Such wearable display eyeglasses promise to unlock enormous potential in diverse applications such as medicine, education, navigation, and many more; but until eyeglass-style AR glasses are realized, those possibilities remain only a dream. My research addresses this problem and makes progress "towards everyday-use augmented reality eyeglasses" through computational imaging, displays, and perception. My dissertation (Chakravarthula, 2021) made advances in three key and seemingly distinct areas: first, digital holography and advanced algorithms for compact, high-quality, true 3-D holographic displays; second, hardware and software for robust and comprehensive 3-D eye tracking via Purkinje Images; and third, automatic focus adjusting AR display eyeglasses for well-focused virtual and real imagery, toward potentially achieving 20/20 vision for users of all ages.