Project description
Innovative breakthrough in smart glasses
Augmented reality overlays digital content on top of the real world. It is primarily experienced through wearable glasses and head mounted devices. In recent years, there has been a mad dash to produce commercially successful spectacles. To date, all products feature major drawbacks such as low brightness, low resolution and reduced eye box, limiting the augmented reality experience. The EU-funded MICROPIX project marks a breakthrough innovation with the use of microLED technology. Their solution to existing problems is the creation of RGB matrices for high-end micro displays that are adapted to cutting-edge augmented reality smart glasses.
Objective
The nascent global augmented reality market is expected to exceed $60 billion in 2023, and offers a lot of growth opportunitites. We expect Augmented Reality to become a part of everyday life as AR smart glasses will make people more connected than ever, in real time, with hands-free and heads-up toward the world. They will also be used to increase productivity for companies in most industries.
The race to produce the first pair of commercially successful augmented reality glasses is on, but all products present major drawbacks such as low brightness, low resolution, big size, small field of view, reduced eye box resulting in limited experience. All major drawbacks are linked to microdisplays' weaknesses.
Many miniaturised components from the smartphone industry can be integrated into smart glasses but the display is the bottleneck and the main challenge for manufacturers.
Current commercialized microdisplays will never meet requirements to produce cutting-edge smart glasses. A new generation of microdisplay has to emerge.
MicroLED technology, the same LED technology which revolutionized general lighting 10 years ago but scaled down to microscale pixels, is the most promising solution and must be developed.
MicroLED displays have the potential to change everything as they can offer unparalleled higher brightness, a better reliability be more compact, offer lower latency, provide better contrast ratio and be energy efficient compared to current display technologies. This is exactly what the AR smart glasses market needs.
Our latest breakthrough innovation will bring the solution by allowing the fabrication of full color RGB matrices for high-end microdisplays, completely adapted to cutting-edge augmented & mixed reality smart glasses.
It is a great opportunity and a good timing to scale-up Novagan in the global microdisplay market.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcolors
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationsmobile phones
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationsvirtual reality
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringmanufacturing engineeringadditive manufacturing
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationssimulation software
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
1003 Lausanne
Switzerland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.