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Korean startup for optical solutions for AR glasses, LetinAR, along with wearable OLED microdisplays developer, Fraunhofer FEP, will present together the PinMR lens sets with an ultra-low-power OLED microdisplay for AR eyewear at MWC 2019.

Augmented-reality (AR) and the necessary technology are penetrating more and more areas of life. Even in the toy industry, AR has started to appear, creating virtual worlds on toy carpets with the help of appropriate devices, or driving the good old toy train virtually over the rails in today's children's rooms. In industry AR has already arrived – more and more companies will in future rely on AR solutions for a wide range of applications.

For large logistics companies and car manufacturers, wearables for displaying production data or storage locations are already part of the inventory and everyday working life. Various wearable devices in the form of data glasses or other display solutions on the head or body of the worker in logistics or on the production line are already on the market.

However there are still some hurdles to face especially for user-friendly solutions with glasses, which help to work hands-free and without taking eye-focus off the work. The currently available AR glasses still lack the decisive parameters necessary for user-friendliness and ergonomics for long-term use on humans. Form factor, oversized “boxes” in front of your eyes due to complicated optics elements and displays, a narrow field of view, short battery lifetime, complicated and expensive production processes and unprecise color resolution are some of the main facts, which delay a breakthrough of AR glasses.

LetinAR is a Korean startup company, which is specialized in the development of novel optics for AR glasses. LetinAR's PinMR technology will set new standards for the production of these wearables. Therefore they have applied the so-called “Pinhole Effect” to tiny mirrors and embedded them with eyeglass lenses. Respective PinMR reflects the light generated by a microdisplay and guides it into human pupils. Users may view the virtual image created via microdisplay equipped with magnifying see-through optics as well as the image from the real world at ease. Human eyes cannot detect the mirrors, which are smaller than pupils. Only the virtual image formed by the light reflected by those mirrors is visible.

This specially developed Pin Mirror optic (PinMR) has now been combined with Fraunhofer FEP's ultra-low-power OLED microdisplay technology, known for its ultra-low power consumption. The extremely small size of the ultra-low power OLED microdisplay is perfectly suited for small, miniaturized and lightweight systems that are wearable and simple to integrate into glasses, caps, or helmets. The display's OLED technology enables sharp images with very high contrasts and brightness over very wide dynamic range (monochrome green so far, yet basically expandable to full-color).

In addition, an extra, innovative Bluetooth concept now makes it possible to communicate with the wearable/display in an energy-saving manner. Data transmission from, for example, scanner data to storage locations or filling levels can be transmitted directly to the AR glasses of a picker in logistics. And this without having to interrupt the work shift for loading times of the glasses.

The demonstration convinces by a very high optical efficiency of the LetinAR technology, at present no comparably efficient transparent optics are available on the market. In combination with the extremely small-sized OLED microdisplay the scientists present a novel system, that can bring future AR glasses a big step forward – ergonomic and compact designs could become reality soon. The simple controllability of OLED microdisplays also scores well with system developers.

Overall, the combination of the two technologies can overcome some of the current hurdles and pave the way for new AR wearables into daily use. In the future, the developers of both entities intend to push the presented technologies ahead in a customized way together with manufacturers of AR systems and wearables of tomorrow.

For the presentation of the concepts and for discussions on possible technology developments and transfers, both entities will present a first joint technology demonstrator of highly efficient transparent optics with OLED microdisplays during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2019, in Barcelona, Spain at the booth of LetinAR, Nr. CS80 (Hall Congress Square). LetinAR team will also be available to provide insight into the AR market and technology trends. Jaehyeok Kim, the CEO of LetinAR will present news conference “Why Can’t We have True Augmented Reality Glasses, Yet? - Bold Suggestion to Tackle the AR Optics Problem” at February 25, 2019 10:30AM in CC4.2, 4G30, Hall 4. Attendees will be able to experience LetinAR PinMR Smart glasses demo at the conference.