A review of head-worn display research at NASA Langley Research Center

Abstract

NASA Langley has conducted research in the area of helmet-mounted/head-worn displays over the past 30 years. Initially, NASA Langley's research focused on military applications, but recently has conducted a line of research in the area of head-worn displays for commercial and business aircraft. This work has revolved around numerous simulation experiments as well as flight tests to develop technology and data for industry and regulatory guidance. The paper summarizes the results of NASA's helmet-mounted/head-worn display research. Of note, the work tracks progress in wearable collimated optics, head tracking, latency reduction, and weight. The research lends credence that a small, sunglasses-type form factor of the head-worn display would be acceptable to commercial pilots, and this goal is now becoming technologically feasible. The research further suggests that a head-worn display may serve as an "equivalent" Head-Up Display (HUD) with safety, operational, and cost benefits. "HUD equivalence" appears to be the economic avenue by which head-worn displays can become main-stream on the commercial and business aircraft flight deck. If this happens, NASA's research suggests that additional operational benefits using the unique capabilities of the head-worn display can open up new operational paradigms.

A Review of the Capabilities of Current Low-Cost Virtual Reality Technology and Its Potential to Enhance the Design Process

“…By the early 2000s, much of the research had fallen by the wayside, and general interest in VR technology waned. The VR hardware of the time was expensive, bulky, heavy, low resolution, and required specialized computing hardware [1,[3][4][5][6]. However, in the last five years, a new generation of hardware has emerged.…”

Review of head-worn displays for the Next Generation Air Transportation System

“…1 The heritage of this work was once tied closely to the Department of Defense activities, but has changed over the last two decades to focus on research to provide commercial flight crews with proactive, intuitive tools to conduct safe and efficient flights. Since the late 1990s, this research was driven by the White House Commission on Aviation Safety.…”

A wavelet-based framework for efficient processing of digital imagery with an application to helmet-mounted vision systems

“…The National Research Council of Canada flight-tested the use of HMDs for Instrument Approach Procedures [52]. NASA has been researching the use of head-worn displays in aviation for HUD equivalency in commercial and business jets [53], and several companies have begun to advertise future products, such as the Thales TopMax [54]. Aviation training applications, such as virtual-reality-based inspection [55], have been explored.…”