Curved LCD technology may be opening up a whole new world of technology
Augmented reality, combined with the latest in curved LCD technology, may be bringing concepts that had previously been available only in science fiction into reality.
This is the idea of combining a head up display with contact lenses for a whole new level of gadget.
This could become possible as a result of the latest announcement from the Centre of Microsystems Technology, which has said that curved LCD has now been successfully embedded onto a contact lens, for an important step closer to a glass-free augmented reality experience.
LCD was carefully chosen instead of embeddable LED for this augmented reality technology.
The reason that the LCD option was chosen is because it provided the opportunity to use the complete display. Alternatively, LED arrays will use only a smaller part of the surface area. According to the primary research on this project, Jelle De Smet, flexible LCD technology displays are not typically designed to be able to withstand the process involved in shaping. However, the latest conductive polymers have made it possible to achieve a spherical shaped display.
The larger display area could be combined with altered numbers, patterns, and sizes of the LCD pixels. For instance, if the lenses were created with one pixel each, then it would be possible to alter the shade of the pixels, creating a type of lens-based pair of sunglasses. Moreover, if they decide to work as many pixels into the lens LCD as they can, then it would be able to function as a detailed display.
A prototype was unveiled alongside the team’s augmented reality technology announcement. So far, the prototype lens is capable only of displaying basic patterns and shapes. The demo display included a dollar sign. This is because the display, at the moment, is comparable to the LCD of a calculator instead of a type of lens-sized television.
Furthermore, the current display can show patterns that can be seen only on the outside as opposed to being visible to the wearer. However, the team’s current project is to look into making pixels visible to the wearer when they are that close to the eye. It is this type of technology that would be required for augmented reality contact lenses to be possible.
