CN111142255A - AR optical display module and display device - Google Patents

AR optical display module and display device Download PDF

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Publication number
CN111142255A
CN111142255A CN201811302828.7A CN201811302828A CN111142255A CN 111142255 A CN111142255 A CN 111142255A CN 201811302828 A CN201811302828 A CN 201811302828A CN 111142255 A CN111142255 A CN 111142255A
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China
Prior art keywords
image
light
module
sub
scanning
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CN201811302828.7A
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Chinese (zh)
Inventor
宋海涛
周旭东
姚长呈
王佳舟
徐瑞林
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Chengdu Idealsee Technology Co Ltd
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Chengdu Idealsee Technology Co Ltd
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Priority to CN201811302828.7A priority Critical patent/CN111142255A/en
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    • G—PHYSICS
    • G02—OPTICS
    • G02B—OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS
    • G02B27/00—Optical systems or apparatus not provided for by any of the groups G02B1/00 - G02B26/00, G02B30/00
    • G02B27/01—Head-up displays
    • G02B27/0101—Head-up displays characterised by optical features
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G02—OPTICS
    • G02B—OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS OR APPARATUS
    • G02B27/00—Optical systems or apparatus not provided for by any of the groups G02B1/00 - G02B26/00, G02B30/00
    • G02B27/01—Head-up displays
    • G02B27/0101—Head-up displays characterised by optical features
    • G02B2027/0123—Head-up displays characterised by optical features comprising devices increasing the field of view

Abstract

The invention discloses an AR optical display module and display equipment.A to-be-displayed image is divided into M sub-images by an image dividing unit, the M sub-images are simultaneously scanned and emitted by one or more scanning optical fibers of an optical fiber scanner in an optical fiber scanning module, and are collimated by a collimating optical system to form a mixed light beam containing the to-be-displayed image, the mixed light beam is coupled into a waveguide module, and each layer of coupling-in unit in the waveguide module is configured to be coupled into a light beam of one sub-image; the emergent images of the mixed light beams of the images to be displayed after being coupled out by the corresponding coupling-out units are spliced into the images to be displayed, and then the images with depth can be presented by focusing through the variable-focus unit on the emergent light path of the waveguide module, and meanwhile, the focal length of the variable-focus unit is synchronously offset by the light compensation unit arranged opposite to the variable-focus unit, so that the influence of external natural light beams entering the display module on the variable-focus unit is avoided, and the effect of augmented reality display is effectively improved. The invention solves the problems of large view field, adjustable depth and miniaturization of the near-to-eye display module by a brand-new thought.

Description

AR optical display module and display device
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of display, in particular to an AR optical display module and display equipment.
Background
With the development of society, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are increasingly applied. The augmented reality technology superimposes virtual information on a real world for a user to watch, the virtual reality technology provides a complete virtual world for the user to watch, and the two technologies are widely applied to the fields of medicine, entertainment, education, industrial simulation and the like.
As shown in fig. 1, a conventional near-eye display system applied to the AR field generally includes: the device comprises an image source 1, an ocular lens system 2, an incoupling grating 3, a waveguide 4 and an outcoupling grating 5; after being collimated by the eyepiece system 2, light beams emitted by the image source 1 are coupled into the waveguide 4 at a certain angle through the coupling grating 3 for total reflection transmission, and the coupling grating 5 arranged in the waveguide corresponding to the exit pupil position couples the light beams transmitted in the waveguide out to human eyes. However, the coupled grating is very sensitive to the incident angle, which causes the current situation that the field angle observed by the user is limited, and each pixel in the image is focused at a certain value, so that the human eye can only see the image without depth, and the experience degree is poor.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention aims to provide an AR optical display module and display equipment, which are used for solving the problems of large view field, adjustable depth and miniaturization of the existing near-to-eye display equipment.
In order to achieve the above object, in a first aspect, the present invention provides an AR optical display module, including:
the image segmentation unit is used for segmenting an image to be displayed into M sub-images, wherein M is an integer greater than or equal to 2;
the optical fiber scanning module comprises an optical fiber scanner and an input light source, wherein the optical fiber scanner comprises at least one scanning optical fiber, each scanning optical fiber corresponds to one input light source, one input light source comprises one or more groups of light sources, and each group of light sources at least comprises R, G, B light-emitting units; a scanning optical fiber scans and emits N sub-image light beams, the optical fiber scanner simultaneously scans and emits the M sub-images through the at least one scanning optical fiber, and the M sub-image light beams are collimated by a collimating optical system to form an image mixed light beam to be displayed, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and N is less than or equal to M;
the waveguide module is arranged on an emergent light path of the optical fiber scanning module and is provided with a plurality of layers of coupling-in units and a plurality of layers of coupling-out units, and each layer of coupling-in unit is configured to couple in a light beam of one sub-image; the emergent images of the mixed light beams of the image to be displayed after being coupled out by the coupling-out units of the corresponding waveguide modules are spliced into the image to be displayed;
the variable-focus unit is arranged on the light emitting side of the waveguide module, is positioned on a light emitting path, and is used for adjusting the focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed and emitted by the waveguide module;
and the optical compensation unit is arranged on the other side of the waveguide module opposite to the variable-focus unit and is used for offsetting the focal length corresponding to the variable-focus module.
Optionally, when the optical fiber scanning module scans and emits the M sub-images through the plurality of scanning optical fibers, the scanning beams of the plurality of image generating sub-units are spliced with each other before being incident on the waveguide module.
Optionally, the mixed light beams of the M sub-images in the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed emitted by the optical fiber scanning module correspond to different wavelength ranges.
Optionally, when N is equal to 1 and the optical fiber scanner includes at least two scanning optical fibers, the scanning optical beams of at least two sub-images scanned and emitted by the at least two scanning optical fibers are coupled into the waveguide module in a misaligned manner.
Optionally, when N is greater than or equal to 2, the optical fiber scanner modulates the mixed light beams of the N sub-images for each scanning optical fiber in a wavelength division multiplexing manner; the input light source corresponding to one scanning optical fiber comprises N groups of light sources, light generated by the N groups of light sources is input into one scanning optical fiber in the optical fiber scanner after being combined, and light emitting units with the same color channel in the N groups of light sources are configured to emit light with different wavelengths; when the optical fiber scanner comprises more than two optical fibers, the wavelength configuration of the input light source corresponding to each scanning optical fiber is the same.
Optionally, when each sub-image is modulated by R, G, B three light emitting units, the waveguide module comprises 3 × N layers of in-coupling units and 3 × N layers of out-coupling units, or the waveguide module comprises 3 × N layers of waveguides stacked, and each layer of waveguide substrate has one layer of in-coupling units and one layer of out-coupling units; each layer of coupling-in unit is configured to couple in only one wavelength of the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed, the coupling-in unit is a reflective grating or a light filter, and the coupling-out unit is a coupling-out grating or a coupling-out mirror array.
Optionally, the display module further includes:
and the beam splitter is arranged on the light-emitting optical path of the image generation unit and the light-incident optical path of the waveguide module and is used for separating the light beams with different wavelengths in the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed.
Optionally, the display module further includes:
the detector is used for detecting the focusing position of human eyes in the image to be displayed and determining depth information corresponding to the focusing position;
the variable focus unit is configured to adjust a focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed according to the depth information;
the optical compensation unit is configured to synchronously cancel a focal length of the variable focus unit.
Optionally, the variable focus unit and the optical compensation unit are both refractive optical elements or diffractive optical elements.
Optionally, the refractive index of the waveguide material used by the waveguide module is greater than 1.9.
In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides an AR display device, including at least one group of AR optical display modules according to the first aspect, configured to project a light beam corresponding to an image to be displayed, and adjust a focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed.
One or more technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention have at least the following technical effects or advantages:
the invention solves the problems of large view field, adjustable depth and miniaturization of the near-to-eye display module by a brand-new thought. The VR optical display module used in the invention simultaneously modulates and emits M sub-images through one or more scanning optical fibers of an optical fiber scanner in the optical fiber scanning module, couples the M sub-images into the waveguide module, and splices emergent images of mixed light beams of images to be displayed after being coupled out by the coupling-out units of the corresponding waveguide module into images to be displayed, thereby realizing large-field display; when one scanning optical fiber scans and emits light beams of a plurality of sub-images, namely under the condition of realizing the same resolution and angle of view through a wavelength division multiplexing mode, the number of the scanning optical fibers can be reduced, which is beneficial to the miniaturization production of near-eye display equipment, a variable focus unit is arranged on a light emitting path at a light emitting side of the waveguide module, and an optical compensation unit is arranged at the other side of the waveguide module, so that the focal length corresponding to an image to be displayed spliced by the coupled light beams can be adjusted through the variable focus unit, the set optical compensation unit synchronously offsets the focal length of the variable focus unit, the influence of external natural light beams entering the display module on the variable focus unit is avoided, and the effect of the real enhanced display is improved.
Drawings
In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly described below, it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and for those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained according to the drawings without inventive exercise:
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a near-to-eye display module in the augmented reality field of the prior art;
fig. 2A-2C are schematic structural diagrams of an optical fiber scanning module according to an embodiment of the disclosure;
FIGS. 3A-3B are schematic diagrams of a flat panel display according to an embodiment of the disclosure;
FIGS. 4A-4B are schematic structural diagrams of an MEMS scanning module according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 5 is a first schematic structural diagram of a near-to-eye optical display module in which an image generating unit is an optical fiber display module according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a near-to-eye optical display module in which the image generating unit is an optical fiber display module according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a near-to-eye optical display module with an image generating unit as a flat panel display according to an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 8 is a first schematic structural diagram of a near-eye optical display module with a beam splitter according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;
FIG. 9 is a second schematic structural diagram of a near-eye optical display module with a beam splitter according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;
FIG. 10 is a schematic structural diagram of a near-eye optical display module suitable for VR according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;
11A-11C are schematic structural views of a VR optical display module according to embodiments of the present invention;
FIG. 12 is a schematic structural diagram of a near-eye optical display module suitable for AR according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;
FIGS. 13A-13C are schematic structural views of an AR optical display module according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 14 is a schematic diagram of a near-eye display device according to an embodiment of the disclosure.
Detailed Description
The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.
The embodiment of the invention provides a series of optical display modules applied to near-eye display based on the thinking of the near-eye display, and an image generation module corresponding to the optical display modules and application of the optical display modules.
The near-eye optical display module mainly comprises an image segmentation unit, an image generation unit, a waveguide module and a variable focus unit, wherein the image segmentation unit is used for segmenting an image to be displayed into M sub-images, and M is an integer greater than or equal to 2; the image generation unit comprises one or more image generation subunits, each image generation subunit modulates light beams which emit N sub-images, N is an integer which is greater than or equal to 1, and N is less than or equal to M; the image generation unit simultaneously modulates and emits the M sub-images through one or more image generation sub-units, and forms a mixed beam of an image to be displayed, which comprises the M sub-image beams, after the mixed beam is collimated by the collimating optical system; the waveguide module is arranged on the light-emitting path of the image generating unit and is provided with a plurality of layers of coupling-in units and a plurality of layers of coupling-out units, each layer of coupling-in unit is configured to couple in a sub-image light beam, the positions of the coupling-out units are correspondingly arranged according to the coupling-in situation of the coupling-in units, and the coupling-in units and the coupling-out units are matched together, so that the emergent images of the mixed light beams of the images to be displayed, which are generated by the image generating unit and are coupled out by the waveguide module coupling-out units, are spliced into the images to be displayed; the variable-focus unit is arranged on the light-emitting path of the waveguide module and used for focusing the image to be displayed emitted by the waveguide module, adjusting the focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed, guiding the focused light beam corresponding to the image to be displayed into human eyes and changing the depth of the image observed by the human eyes.
First, the main components of the near-eye optical display module in the embodiment of the present invention are introduced:
firstly, an image generating unit.
The image generating unit may be a flat panel display such as a liquid crystal display LCD, an organic light emitting diode OLED display, a liquid crystal silicon LCOS display, a DLP display, or an optical fiber scanning module or an MEMS scanning module based on a special structure, as long as the light emitting source can emit light, preferably, the light emitting source can adopt a wavelength division multiplexing mode, and a plurality of pixel light information including a plurality of sub-images in the same emitted pixel light spot is used as the image generating unit in the embodiment of the present invention.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the image generating unit includes, but is not limited to, the following:
(1) optical fiber scanning module
In the embodiment of the invention, the optical fiber scanning module comprises an optical fiber scanner and an input light source. Wherein the fiber scanner comprises at least one scanning fiber, wherein the fiber scanner comprises at least one actuator (such as a piezoelectric actuator), each actuator driving one or more scanning fibers; one scanning optical fiber corresponds to one path of input light source, wherein the input light source can be a laser light source or other light sources such as a Light Emitting Diode (LED) and the like; one path of input light source comprises N groups of light sources, N is a positive integer, each group of light source at least comprises R, G, B light-emitting units, one light-emitting unit can comprise a plurality of light-emitting devices, for example, an R light-emitting unit can be formed by mixing two light-emitting devices R 'and R', and when each light-emitting unit comprises a plurality of light-emitting devices, light energy can be improved. Preferably, when each scanning optical fiber scans a group of input light sources, the wavelength configurations of the input light sources corresponding to different scanning optical fibers may be different; when the optical fiber scanner comprises more than two optical fibers and each scanning optical fiber scans at least two groups of input light sources, the wavelength configuration of the input light sources corresponding to each scanning optical fiber is the same.
Fig. 2A illustrates an example where the fiber scanning module 100 includes a brake 110, and the brake 110 drives a scanning fiber 111. In fig. 2A, one input light source includes N groups of laser light sources 120, each group of laser light sources includes R, G, B three monochromatic lasers (R, G, B refers to red, green, and blue lasers, respectively), and the N monochromatic lasers of the same color channel in the N groups of laser light sources are configured to emit light with different wavelengths; light generated by N groups of laser light sources is input into one scanning optical fiber 111 in the optical fiber scanner 100, where N is an integer greater than or equal to 1. The light generated by the N groups of laser light sources is preferably input into one scanning optical fiber in the optical fiber scanner after being combined. The combined beam may be a combined beam of red light, green light and blue light generated by R, G, B monochromatic lasers in a single group of laser light sources, or a combined beam of all lights of N groups of laser light sources, or both of the two combined beams, which is not limited herein.
The N monochromatic lasers of the same color channel in the N groups of laser light sources are configured to emit light of different wavelengths, and taking a red monochromatic laser as an example, the R1 monochromatic laser, R2 monochromatic laser … … Rn monochromatic laser shown in fig. 2A all generate red light, but generate red light of different wavelengths. Similarly, the G1 monochromatic laser and the G2 monochromatic laser … … Gn monochromatic laser generate green light, but generate green light with different wavelengths; the B1 and B2 … … Bn monochromatic lasers both produce blue light, but produce blue light of different wavelengths.
Taking an example that one path of input light source includes 2 groups of laser light sources, as shown in fig. 2B, the fiber scanning module 200 includes an input light source 220 including 2 groups of laser light sources 221 and 222, the first group of laser light source 221 includes three monochromatic lasers R1, G1, and B1, the second group of laser light source 222 includes three monochromatic lasers R2, G2, and B2, the central wavelength difference of two monochromatic lasers with the same color channel in the two groups of laser light sources is preferably in the range of 5nm to 30nm, for example, in fig. 2B, the wavelength of each laser can be configured as follows: the emergent wavelength of the red laser R1 is 650nm, the emergent wavelength of the green laser G1 is 530nm, and the emergent wavelength of the blue laser B1 is 460 nm; the emission wavelength of the red laser R2 is 635nm, the emission wavelength of the green laser G2 is 520nm, and the emission wavelength of the blue laser B2 is 450 nm. The two groups of laser light sources 221 and 222 are both input into the scanning fiber 211 in the fiber scanner 210, so that each pixel point scanned by the scanning fiber 211 carries two parts of light information emitted by the first group of laser light source 221 and the second group of laser light source 222.
Fig. 2C illustrates an example where fiber scanner 300 includes 3 actuators 310, 320, and 330, and actuators 310, 320, and 330 respectively drive one scanning fiber 311, 321, and 331. The input light source 340 in the figure includes 6 sets of laser light sources 341 and 346. Wherein, the light beams generated by the laser sources 341 and 342 are inputted into the scanning fiber 311 driven by the actuator 310, the light beams generated by the laser sources 343 and 344 are inputted into the scanning fiber 321 driven by the actuator 320, and the light beams generated by the laser sources 345 and 346 are inputted into the scanning fiber 331 driven by the actuator 330. The laser light source 341 includes three monochromatic lasers R1, G1 and B1, the laser light source 342 includes three monochromatic lasers R2, G2 and B2, and two monochromatic lasers with the same color channel in the two groups of laser light sources emit light with different wavelengths. The input light source wavelength configurations corresponding to the other scanning fibers 321 and 331 are the same as those of the scanning fiber 311.
(2) Flat panel display screen
Based on the same idea as that of the optical fiber scanning module, an embodiment of the present invention further discloses a flat panel display, as shown in fig. 3A, each pixel of the flat panel display includes at least two groups of sub-pixels, each group of sub-pixels includes R, G, B three color units, and the same color unit in each group of sub-pixels adopts different wavelengths.
In the figure, it can be seen that a pixel point X in the flat panel display 710 includes m groups of sub-pixel information, and each group of sub-pixel information is modulated by R, G, B color elements with different wavelengths. For example, the first group of sub-pixel information is modulated by a red color cell of R1 wavelength, a green color cell of G1 wavelength, a blue color cell of B1 wavelength; the second group of sub-pixel information is modulated by a red color cell of R2 wavelength, a green color cell of G2 wavelength, a blue color cell of B2 wavelength; by analogy, the m-th group of sub-pixel information is modulated by a red color cell with an Rm wavelength, a green color cell with a Gm wavelength and a blue color cell with a Bm wavelength.
In the preferred embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3B, a pixel X of the flat panel display 700 includes two sets of sub-pixel information. Wherein the first group of sub-pixel information is modulated by a red color cell of R1 wavelength, a green color cell of G1 wavelength, a blue color cell of B1 wavelength; the second group of sub-pixel information is modulated by a red color cell at the R2 wavelength, a green color cell at the G2 wavelength, and a blue color cell at the B2 wavelength. It is understood that each pixel of the flat panel display 700 thus carries information of two groups of pixels, and one flat panel display 700 can display two images with different contents at the same time by means of wavelength division multiplexing.
The flat panel display screen can be a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display screen, a liquid crystal silicon Liquid Crystal On Silicon (LCOS) display screen, a Digital Light Processing (DLP) display screen and other flat panel display screens.
(3) MEMS scanning module
Based on the same idea as the optical fiber scanning module, an embodiment of the present invention further discloses an MEMS scanning module 850, as shown in fig. 4A, including an MEMS scanner and light sources, where the light sources include N groups of light sources, each group of light sources includes R, G, B three light emitting units, N light emitting units of the same color channel in the N groups of light sources are configured to emit light with different wavelengths, and N is an integer greater than or equal to 1. N groups of light sources in the light-emitting light sources are N groups of laser tube light sources or N groups of LED light sources.
In the figure, it can be seen that there are N groups of RGB light sources, where the red light generator of the first light source produces red light at the R1 wavelength, the green light generator produces green light at the G1 wavelength, and the blue light generator produces blue light at the B1 wavelength; the red light generator of the second light source generates red light of R2 wavelength, the green light generator generates green light of G2 wavelength, the blue light generator generates blue light of B2 wavelength … … the red light generator of the nth light source generates red light of Rn wavelength, the green light generator generates green light of Gn wavelength, and the blue light generator generates blue light of Bn wavelength. The beams of light generated by each group of light sources are combined and then are reflected and scanned out by a scanning mirror of the MEMS scanning module.
Alternatively, as shown in fig. 4B, each pixel scanned by the scanning mirror 810 of the MEMS scanning module 800 is reflected by the combined light beams modulated by the first light source 821 and the second light source 822. Wherein the red light generator of the first light source 821 generates red light of R1 wavelength, the green light generator generates green light of G1 wavelength, and the blue light generator generates blue light of B1 wavelength; the red light generator of the second light source 822 generates red light of a wavelength of R2, the green light generator generates green light of a wavelength of G2, and the blue light generator generates blue light of a wavelength of B2. The light source here may be a light emitting diode LED or a laser.
And secondly, a waveguide module.
The waveguide module is used for separating each subimage in the mixed light beam generated by the image generating unit and splicing the subimages into the image to be displayed. The waveguide module may be a waveguide including multiple layers stacked, or may be one or more waveguides having multiple layers of coupling-in and coupling-out units (for example, including three layers of waveguides for respectively transmitting three RBG colors); the waveguide group can also adopt an array reflector to realize the coupling-in and coupling-out functions, or can also select the wavelength in a coating mode. The waveguide module may be designed into different forms in different embodiments, and those skilled in the art can set the waveguide module according to actual requirements.
The waveguide material used for the waveguide module may be a high refractive index material, for example, a waveguide material having a refractive index greater than 1.9. Preferably, the waveguide module can adopt a waveguide material with the refractive index of [1.9, 2.0 ]. Therefore, the single waveguide group can achieve a 50-degree field angle, can achieve a 100-degree field angle after splicing, and meets the requirement of VR immersion feeling.
And thirdly, a variable focus unit.
The variable focus unit may be a refractive optical element, e.g. a liquid crystal lens, an electro-active lens, a refractive lens with a movable element, a lens based on mechanical deformation, such as a fluid filled membrane lens, or a lens similar to the human lens, where the flexible element is bent or relaxed by an actuator, an electrowetting lens, or a plurality of fluids with different refractive indices. The variable focus unit may also be a switchable diffractive optical element, such as one featuring a polymer dispersed liquid crystal approach, in which a host medium of polymer material has droplets of liquid crystal dispersed within the material, which molecules reorient when a voltage is applied such that their refractive index no longer matches that of the host medium, thereby producing a high frequency switchable diffractive pattern.
In the embodiment of the invention, the variable-focus unit is arranged on the light-emitting path of the waveguide module and is used for focusing the light beam of the image to be displayed emitted by the waveguide module and adjusting the focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed, so that the image depth sensed by human eyes in the process of observing the image to be displayed is changed. In practical applications, as long as the device can focus the light beam of the image to be displayed emitted by the waveguide module and can adjust the focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed, the device can be used as the variable focus unit in the embodiment of the present invention, which is not particularly limited in this embodiment of the present invention.
When the image generation unit modulates and emits the M sub-images through the image generation sub-units, the light beams of the image generation sub-units are spliced with each other before being incident on the waveguide module, and the splicing refers to content splicing, but not to splicing of physical properties of the light beams.
If each sub-image is modulated by R, G, B three light emitting cells, the waveguide module comprises 3 × N layers of in-coupling cells and 3 × N layers of out-coupling cells; or the waveguide module comprises 3 × N layers of waveguides which are stacked, and each layer of waveguide substrate is provided with a layer of coupling-in units and a layer of coupling-out units; each layer of coupling-in unit is configured to couple in only one wavelength of the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed, the coupling-in unit is a reflective grating or a light filter, and the coupling-out unit is a coupling-out grating or a coupling-out mirror array.
Next, based on the above description of the respective components, the main display modes of the near-eye optical display module will be described as a whole:
1. when N is equal to 1 and the image generating unit comprises at least two image generating subunits, the light beams of the at least two sub-images emitted by the at least two image generating subunits corresponding to the modulation are coupled into the waveguide module in a dislocation manner.
That is, when one image generation subunit in the image generation unit only modulates and emits one sub-image, the image generation unit correspondingly modulates and emits light beams of at least two sub-images by using at least two image generation subunits, and the light beams of the two sub-images are spliced with each other before being incident on the waveguide module and are coupled into the waveguide module in a staggered manner.
In this way, the light beam of only one sub-image generated by each image generation subunit can be directly coupled into the waveguide module through the corresponding coupling-in unit, for example, the corresponding relationship between the positions of each image generation subunit and the corresponding coupling-in unit can be preset, and the different coupling-in units or the different image generation subunits are staggered with each other, so that one sub-image modulated and emitted by each image generation subunit can be directly coupled into the waveguide module by the corresponding coupling-in unit after being collimated, the light beams passing through the waveguide module are coupled out and spliced into an image to be displayed, and the image to be displayed can present an image with depth for a user through the focusing of the variable focus unit.
2. When N is larger than or equal to 2, each image generation subunit modulates mixed light beams of N sub-images in a wavelength division multiplexing mode, the light emitting wavelength configuration of each image generation subunit is the same, and the light beams with the same color in the mixed light beams of the N sub-images have different wavelengths.
That is, when each image generation subunit modulates the mixed light beam of at least two sub-images, the light beams of at least two sub-images emitted by each image generation subunit can be spliced into a complete parallax image, and then the light beam with the corresponding wavelength can be selected by the coupling-in unit in the waveguide module to be coupled into the waveguide module.
The following contents of the present invention will mainly be described that each image generation subunit modulates a mixed light beam of N sub-images modulated by a wavelength division multiplexing method; as to the manner in which one sub-image generating unit modulates the light beam emitting one sub-image in the above 1, it is easily understood from the foregoing description, and this will not be described in too much detail in the following text.
In the following, with reference to the drawings, a plurality of embodiments are described, specifically describing various display modes and corresponding structures of the near-eye optical display module (taking the image generating unit as the optical fiber scanning module as an example) under the condition that N is greater than or equal to 2:
first group of embodiments of near-eye optical display module (the image generating unit is a fiber scanning module)：
In this group of embodiments, the corresponding embodiments are described in the following two cases according to the different number of scanning fibers used by the fiber scanner.
Case 1: the optical fiber scanning module modulates and emits the M sub-images simultaneously through one scanning optical fiber.
In the embodiment of fig. 5, the fiber scanning module modulates and emits M sub-images simultaneously through one scanning fiber. At this time, N is equal to or greater than 2, that is, in fig. 5, the image segmentation unit segments the image to be displayed into N sub-images, and one sub-image is a viewing angle sub-image; the one path of input light source corresponding to one scanning optical fiber comprises N groups of laser light sources, each group of laser light sources comprises R, G, B monochromatic lasers, each group of laser light sources respectively and correspondingly modulates one of the N different angle-of-view sub-images, that is, the first laser light source correspondingly modulates the first angle-of-view sub-image, and the second laser light source correspondingly modulates the second angle-of-view sub-image … … and the nth laser light source correspondingly modulates the nth angle-of-view sub-image, so that the light beams output by the single scanning optical fiber in fig. 5 and emitted at each pixel point position all carry the pixel information of the N different angle-of-view sub-images, and the mixed image light beams emitted by the scanning optical fiber are collimated and then coupled into the waveguide module. In fig. 5, the waveguide module is exemplified by 3 × N stacked waveguides, each of which is configured to couple in only one output beam of a single color laser, for example, a first layer of waveguides is coupled in only a beam generated by a red laser R1 in a first group of laser sources, a second layer of waveguides is coupled in only a beam generated by a green laser G1 in the first group of laser sources, a third layer of waveguides is coupled in only a beam … … generated by a green laser B1 in the first group of laser sources, and so on, and each of the single color lasers corresponds to one of the waveguides. Of course, the foregoing corresponding manner is only an example, each monochromatic laser corresponds to one layer of waveguide, and the positioning sequence of the waveguides is not limited as long as each layer of waveguide can be designed to couple in only one output beam of the monochromatic laser.
It can be understood that if there are k pixel points in the image to be displayed, scanning is performed by one scanning optical fiber, and the scanning optical fiber needs to scan the k pixel points; after the image S to be displayed is divided into N field sub-images S2, if the pixel points included in each field sub-image are the same, the N field sub-images are modulated by the corresponding laser light sources respectively and are mixed and input into the same scanning optical fiber, the optical fiber only needs to scan k/N pixel points. This increases the refresh rate of the image.
Case 2: the optical fiber scanning module modulates and emits the M sub-images simultaneously through a plurality of scanning optical fibers.
In the embodiment of fig. 6, an embodiment is described in which the fiber scanning module modulates and emits M sub-images through a plurality of scanning fibers, where M > N. As shown in fig. 6, when M is 6 and N is 2, the image splitting unit 610 splits the image to be displayed into 6 sub-images S11, S12, S13, S21, S22, and S23. The sub-images S11 and S21 are modulated by laser light sources 6211 and 6212, respectively, and the image beams modulated by the laser light sources 6211 and 6212 are input to the scanning fiber 6210; the sub-images S12 and S22 are modulated by laser light sources 6221 and 6222, respectively, and the image beams modulated by the laser light sources 6221 and 6222 are input to the scanning fiber 6220; the sub-image S13 and the sub-image S23 are modulated by the laser light sources 6231 and 6232, respectively, and the image beams modulated by the laser light sources 6231 and 6232 are input to the scanning fiber 6230. Therefore, the light beam emitted from each pixel point position scanned by each optical fiber contains the pixel information of two sub-images.
In fig. 6, the laser light sources 6211, 6221, 6231 have the same configuration and all include three monochromatic lasers R1, G1, B1; the laser light sources 6212, 6222, 6232 have the same arrangement and include three monochromatic lasers of R2, G2, and B2. The wavelength of each laser can be configured as follows: the emergent wavelength of the red laser R1 is 650nm, the emergent wavelength of the green laser G1 is 530nm, and the emergent wavelength of the blue laser B1 is 460 nm; the emission wavelength of the red laser R2 is 635nm, the emission wavelength of the green laser G2 is 520nm, and the emission wavelength of the blue laser B2 is 450 nm.
The light beams modulated by the scanning fibers 6210, 6220, 6230 are spliced, i.e., content-spliced, to each other before being incident on the waveguide substrate. The light beams modulated by the scanning optical fibers 6210, 6220, 6230 are transmitted into the waveguide module 650 after passing through the collimating system 640, the waveguide module 650 couples out the sub-images S11, S12, S13, S21, S22, S23 according to the waveguide module scheme in the above embodiments, the field-of-view splicing is completed at the human eye, and the spliced image can present an image with depth through the focusing of the variable focus unit.
Therefore, when N is larger than or equal to 2, the near-eye optical display module adopts a wavelength division multiplexing mode, the number of scanning optical fibers can be reduced under the condition of realizing the same resolution and the same field angle, and the miniaturization production of the near-eye display equipment is facilitated.
Second group of embodiments of near-to-eye optical display modules (the image generating unit is a flat panel display)：
In the near-eye optical display module shown in fig. 7, the image generating unit includes a flat panel display 700 according to the above embodiment. Each pixel of the flat panel display 700 includes M groups of sub-pixels, and the flat panel display 700 modulates a mixed light beam including M sub-images in a wavelength division multiplexing manner, wherein the same color light beam in each sub-image light beam has a different wavelength. The mixed image light displayed by the flat panel display 700 at each time is collimated by the eyepiece optical system and then coupled into the waveguide module.
In this embodiment, the flat panel display 700 can display at least two sub-images with different viewing angles at a time, and each pixel point of the flat panel display 700 carries at least two sets of sub-pixel information with different viewing angles. Wherein the first viewing angle sub-pixel is modulated by a red color cell of R1 wavelength, a green color cell of G1 wavelength, a blue color cell of B1 wavelength; second angular field of view sub-pixel is modulated … … by red color cell of R2 wavelength, green color cell of G2 wavelength, blue color cell of B2 wavelength the nth angular field of view sub-pixel is modulated by red color cell of Rm wavelength, green color cell of Gm wavelength, blue color cell of Bm wavelength.
In this embodiment, how the waveguide module performs wavelength selection and coupling-in transmission on the input light beam, and then the processes of coupling-out, splicing, and focusing by the variable focus unit are the same as those of the first group of embodiments of the near-eye optical display module, and are not described herein again.
Similarly, when the image generating unit in the near-eye optical display module is an MEMS scanning module, each pixel of the MEMS scanning module may include N groups of sub-pixels, the MEMS scanning module modulates a mixed beam including N sub-images in a wavelength division multiplexing manner, and the same color beam in each sub-image beam may have different wavelengths.
In this embodiment, N groups of light sources respectively modulate N sub-images with different field angles to form image beams, and after the image beams are combined, the scanning mirror scans out pixel by pixel in a reflection manner. The red light generator of the first light source generates red light with a wavelength of R1, the green light generator generates green light with a wavelength of G1, and the blue light generator generates blue light with a wavelength of B1; the red light generator of the second light source generates red light of R2 wavelength, the green light generator generates green light of G2 wavelength, the blue light generator generates blue light of B2 wavelength … … the red light generator of the nth light source generates red light of Rn wavelength, the green light generator generates green light of Gn wavelength, and the blue light generator generates blue light of Bn wavelength.
In this embodiment, the mixed image light reflected by the scanning mirror of the MEMS scanner is collimated by the eyepiece optical system and then coupled into the waveguide module, for example, into N sets of stacked waveguide substrates in the waveguide module, and each set of waveguide substrate is only coupled into a corresponding view angle sub-image light beam. Therefore, the field angle of the display module is widened. Similarly, how each layer of waveguide selects the wavelength of the input light beam, couples the input light beam in and transmits the input light beam, and then couples the input light beam out and splices the input light beam, and the process of focusing the input light beam by the variable focus unit is the same as the first group of embodiments of the waveguide-based display module, and is not described herein again.
Further, in the aforementioned embodiments (such as the first group of embodiments and the second group of embodiments) where N is greater than or equal to 2, the waveguide module needs to be designed to have two functions of separating light beams with different wavelengths from the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed and adjusting the angle of the field of view, which has high requirements on the waveguide module design and the processing technology, and is not suitable for mass production. In order to solve the above problem, it is proposed to provide a beam splitter between the image generating unit and the waveguide module, which can perform beam splitting and partial field angle adjustment, thereby reducing the design difficulty and the processing difficulty of the waveguide module, and the embodiments under the condition that N is greater than or equal to 2 can be improved according to the present embodiment.
Third group of embodiments of the near-eye optical display module (provided with a beam splitter):
the beam splitter is arranged between the image generating unit and the waveguide module and can be used for separating beams with different wavelengths in the mixed beam of the image to be displayed. If each sub-image is modulated by R, G, B three light-emitting cells, the waveguide module comprises 3 × N layers of incoupling cells and 3 × N layers of outcoupling cells. The beam splitter may be provided with N band pass filters each configured to reflect the RGB three-color mixed light beams generated by one image generating subunit, each of the band pass filters having a different reflection angle. Alternatively, the beam splitter is provided with 3 × N dichroic filters arranged in sequence along the optical path, each filter being designed to reflect a light beam of one wavelength; wherein the dichroic filter is a long-pass filter or a short-pass filter; when the beam splitter adopts a plurality of long-wave pass filters, the cut-off wavelength of the long-wave pass filters is gradually increased; when the beam splitter adopts a short-wave-pass filter, the cut-off wavelength of the short-wave-pass filter is gradually reduced; each layer of coupling-in units couples in only one wavelength of the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed. The reflection angles of the filters reflecting the three wavelength beams of the same sub-image are the same, and the reflection angles of the filters reflecting the beams of different sub-images are different. (corresponding to the higher part of the rights in the Beam splitter)
Referring to fig. 8, which is a schematic structural view of a near-eye optical display module with a beam splitter according to an embodiment of the present invention, the image generating unit in fig. 8 to 9 is exemplified by the fiber scanning module in fig. 2B. In fig. 8, the image S to be displayed is at the bottom left, and the first group of light sources 221 (with the wavelength R1G1B1) and the second group of light sources 222 (with the wavelength R2G2B2) respectively modulate a first view field image S1 and a second view field image S2 of the image S to be displayed; the light beams of the first field-of-view image S1 and the second field-of-view image S2 are input into the same scanning fiber of the fiber scanner 210 to be scanned.
A beam splitter 930 is disposed on the light exit path of the fiber scanner 210, the beam splitter 930 may include a plurality of dichroic filters, which may be one or more of a band pass filter, a short pass filter, and a long pass filter, the beam splitter 930 may be configured to split light beams with different wavelengths, and the exit angle of each split light beam may be adjusted by designing the reflection angle of the dichroic filter. When the beam splitter adopts a plurality of long-wave pass filters, the cut-off wavelength of the long-wave pass filters is gradually increased; when the beam splitter adopts a short-wave-pass filter, the cut-off wavelength of the short-wave-pass filter is gradually reduced; each layer of coupling-in units couples in only one wavelength of the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed. In fig. 8, for example, 6 short-pass filters 931 and 496 are disposed on the same optical axis as the beam splitter 930, and the cut-off wavelengths of the 6 short-pass filters gradually decrease to reflect light beams with wavelengths of R1, R2, G1, G2, B1 and B2(650nm, 635nm, 530nm, 520nm, 460nm and 450nm), respectively. Wherein the short- pass filters 931, 933, 935 reflect three wavelength beams of the same sub-image (first field-of-view image S1), and therefore the three short- pass filters 931, 933, 935 reflect at the same angle when designed; the short- pass filters 932, 934 and 936 reflect three wavelength beams of the same sub-image (the second field-of-view image S2), so the reflection angles of the three short- pass filters 932, 934 and 936 are the same, and the three reflection angles are different from the reflection angles of the three short- pass filters 931, 933 and 935, and the smaller the light overlapping of the two groups of beams is, the larger the splicing market angle is.
Assuming that the swing angle of the scanning fiber is-20 to-20 in fig. 8, the light beam (R1G1B1) of the first field-of-view image S1 can be made to enter the in-coupling gratings of the waveguides 941, 943, 945 at-40 to-0 by setting the angles of the respective short- pass filters 931 and 936; the light beam (R2G2B2) of the second field-of-view image S2 enters the incoupling gratings of the waveguides 942, 944, 946 at 0 ° to 40 °.
When a bandpass filter is used as the beam splitter, the beam splitter 930 in fig. 8 may also use 6 bandpass filters, each of which reflects light of one wavelength. Of course, when the beam splitter uses a band pass filter, it is also possible to provide 2 band pass filters 951 and 952, as in beam splitter 950 in fig. 9, for reflecting two sets of beams having wavelengths of R1, G1, B1(650nm, 530nm, 460nm) and R2, G2, and B2(635nm, 520nm, 450nm), respectively. Also, since the field images of the 2 bandpass filters 951 and 952 are different in contrast, the reflection angles of the two bandpass filters need to be set to be different, and also, the smaller the overlapping of the reflected light of the bandpass filters 951 and 952 is, the larger the splice market angle is.
The waveguide module is arranged on the light-emitting path of the beam splitter and is provided with a plurality of layers of coupling-in units and a plurality of layers of coupling-out units, each layer of coupling-in unit is coupled in light with different wavelength ranges, and each coupling-out unit is a coupling-out grating or a coupling-out reflector array. In fig. 8, 6 light beams are separated by the beam splitter 930 in a staggered manner, the coupling gratings of the waveguides 941-946 are disposed at the light exit positions of the light beams, and couple the light beams into the waveguides for transmission, and the coupling gratings, the relay gratings and the coupling gratings in the waveguides 941, 943 and 945 cooperate with each other to couple the light beam of the first field-of-view image S1 out at the first field-of-view angle; the incoupling, relay and outcoupling gratings in the waveguides 942, 944, 946 cooperate to couple out the light beams of the second field-of-view image S2 at a second field-of-view angle; the first field-of-view image S1 and the second field-of-view image S2 are stitched to each other outside the waveguide into a full field-of-view image. The beam splitter 930 is misaligned in FIG. 9 to split 2 beams of light, where the first beam is a first field of view image beam having a wavelength of R1G1B1 and the second beam is a second field of view image beam having a wavelength of R2G2B 2; the in-coupling gratings of the waveguides 947 and 949 are disposed at the light-emitting positions of the two light beams, wherein the in-coupling gratings of the waveguides 947 and 949 are disposed on one light path, the first field-of-view image light beams with the wavelength of R1G1B1 are coupled into each waveguide for transmission, and the in-coupling gratings of the waveguides 950 and 952 are disposed on the other light path, the second field-of-view image light beams with the wavelength of R2G2B2 are coupled into each waveguide for transmission; the incoupling, relay and outcoupling gratings in waveguides 947 and 952 cooperate to couple out the light beams of the first field of view image S1 at a first field of view angle; the incoupling, relay and outcoupling gratings in waveguides 947-949 cooperate to couple out the light beams of the second field of view image S2 at a second field of view angle; the first field-of-view image S1 and the second field-of-view image S2 are stitched to each other outside the waveguide into a full field-of-view image.
The beam splitter may be arranged in a horizontal staggered manner, a folded staggered manner, or a folded staggered manner, wherein the folded arrangement makes the coupling design structure more compact. As long as the light beams of the separated sub-images can be incident to the waveguide module in a staggered manner, the staggered arrangement form of the beam splitter may be set according to actual requirements, and the embodiment of the present invention is not particularly limited thereto.
Also, in the set of embodiments of the near-eye optical display module, when the image generation unit simultaneously modulates and emits the M sub-images through the plurality of image generation sub-units, the light beams of the plurality of image generation sub-units are spliced with each other before being incident on the beam splitter.
In the embodiment of the present invention, in order to enable the human eyes to feel different depths of an image in the process of observing the image, the near-eye optical display module may further include a detector (not shown in the figure) for detecting a focusing position of the human eyes in the image to be displayed, and determining depth information corresponding to the focusing position, that is, a focus of the human eyes, so as to obtain a projection distance that needs to be realized by the display system; furthermore, the variable focus unit can adjust the focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed according to the depth information, change the distance between the projection image corresponding to the image to be displayed and the human eyes, and then project the image to be displayed to the projection distance through the variable focus unit (such as a corresponding lens in a lens array), so that the depth display is realized, and when the human eyes watch different positions in the image to be displayed, the human eyes can feel different depths of the image to be displayed, and the experience is better. Of course, in the specific implementation process, the depth distance between the human eye and the focus position may also be determined in other manners, which is not limited by the present invention.
Further, we will use several embodiments to describe the scheme and application scenario of the present invention with reference to the attached drawings. In the description process, in order to avoid redundant descriptions, although the near-eye optical display module relates to a plurality of embodiment sets, since the image generation units are mainly changed (for example, the number of sub-image generation units is changed) and the auxiliary elements are different in different application scenarios, we use one embodiment set of the image generation units as a detailed description (the embodiment set in which the optical fiber scanning module is used as an image source is selected for detailed description), and refer to the non-detailed description of other embodiment sets.
VR optical display module example (containing light blocking unit):
in the embodiment of the present invention, based on the concept of VR display, on the basis of the structure of any of the foregoing embodiments of the near-eye optical display module, a light shielding unit (described in detail later) may be added to form a VR optical display module. The VR optical display module is suitable for VR display scenes. VR optical display module group includes image segmentation unit, image generation unit, waveguide module group, variable focus unit and shading unit, wherein:
the image segmentation unit is used for segmenting an image to be displayed into M sub-images, wherein M is an integer greater than or equal to 2; the M sub-images may be understood as M different field angle sub-images.
The image generation unit comprises one or more image generation subunits, each image generation subunit modulates and emits light beams of N sub-images, the image generation unit simultaneously modulates and emits the M sub-images through the one or more image generation subunits, and the M sub-images are collimated by the collimating optical system to form an image mixed light beam to be displayed, wherein the image mixed light beam comprises the M sub-image light beams, N is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and N is less than or equal to M; when the image generation unit simultaneously modulates and emits M sub-images through one image generation sub-unit, M is equal to N; m > N when the image generation unit simultaneously modulates and emits the M sub-images through the plurality of image generation sub-units. The collimating optical system may be an independent module, and is placed on the light-emitting path of the light-emitting unit, or the collimating optical system may be packaged in the optical fiber scanning module, which is not limited herein. Here, the image generating unit may be any of the aforementioned elements that can function as an image generating unit.
The waveguide module is arranged on the light-emitting path of the image generation unit and is provided with a plurality of layers of coupling-in units and a plurality of layers of coupling-out units, and each layer of coupling-in unit is configured to couple in the light beam of one sub-image; and the emergent images of the mixed light beams of the image to be displayed after being coupled out by the coupling-out units of the corresponding waveguide modules are spliced into the image to be displayed.
The zooming unit is arranged on a light-emitting path of the waveguide module and used for adjusting the focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed and emitted by the waveguide module.
And the shading unit is used for shading other light rays except the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed from entering the waveguide module. The light shielding unit may be a shutter sheet or other member having a light shielding function. The light shielding unit may be attached to the opposite side of the light exit side of the waveguide module (e.g., the back of the exit pupil surface of the waveguide module), or may be disposed at another position of the display module, and as long as the position can shield light other than the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed from entering the waveguide module, the position can be used as the disposition position of the light shielding unit, which is not particularly limited in the embodiment of the present invention.
In the embodiment of the invention, the light shading unit is arranged in the near-eye optical display module to prevent external light beams from entering the display module, so that the VR optical display module suitable for VR display scenes is formed. Fig. 10 is a schematic diagram of a VR optical display module according to an embodiment. In the figure, the image generating unit 21 may adopt one or more image generating subunits to modulate and emit M sub-images corresponding to an image to be displayed, light beams of the image to be displayed enter the waveguide module 22, a light blocking unit 24 is attached to a back surface of the waveguide module 22 opposite to an exit pupil surface, the light beams coupled out by the waveguide module 22 are spliced into a complete image to be displayed (a virtual image), and the image to be displayed is focused by the variable focus unit 23 and then guided into human eyes, so that the human eyes observe an image with depth.
Meanwhile, the VR optical display module can further comprise a detector for detecting the focusing position of human eyes in the image to be displayed, for example, an eye movement tracking camera or a binocular camera and the like can acquire the focusing picture position of the human eyes in real time, and the variable focus unit can focus the image to be displayed according to the depth of the position, so that the human eyes can feel the depth corresponding to the position when watching different positions. The focusing process of the variable focus unit is the same as that in the embodiment of the near-eye optical display module, and details are not repeated here.
As an alternative embodiment, in the structure of the VR optical display module shown in fig. 11A, for example, the image generating unit 21 in fig. 10 includes two image sources (each image source modulates and emits a light beam of a sub-field image, that is, N is 1), and the light blocking unit 24 is a light blocking sheet attached to the opposite surface of the exit pupil surface in the waveguide module. The present solution does not limit the position of the first image source 2101 and the second image source 2102 relative to the waveguide module and the human eye, i.e. the first image source 2101 and the second image source 2102 may be arranged on the same side or on different sides.
The first image source 2101 emits a first field of view image S1, the second image source 2102 emits a second field of view image S2, the first field of view image S1 and the second field of view image S2 can be spliced into a complete field of view image; an image light beam emitted by a first image source 2101 enters a first waveguide group 2201 after being collimated, and is coupled out of the first waveguide group 2201 after passing through an incoupling grating, a relay grating and an outcoupling grating in the first waveguide group 2201; the image light beams emitted by the second image source 2102 enter the second waveguide group 2202 after being collimated, are coupled out of the second waveguide group 2202 through the coupling-in grating, the relay grating and the coupling-out grating in the second waveguide group 2202, and are spliced with the image light beams coupled out of the first waveguide group 2201 to form a complete view field image; further, the entire field image is focused by the zoom element 23 and enters the human eye.
As another alternative, as shown in fig. 11B, the image generating unit 21 includes an image source 2111, the image source 2111 modulates at least two field-of-view images, for example, the image source 2111 emits a first field-of-view image S1 and a second field-of-view image S2, the first field-of-view image S1 and the second field-of-view image S2 can be spliced into a complete field-of-view image, the light beams of the first field-of-view image S1 and the second field-of-view image S2 have different wavelengths, for example, the light beam of the first field-of-view image S1 is modulated by three colors of wavelengths R1, G1, and B1, and the light beam of the second field-of-view image S2 is modulated by three colors of wavelengths R2. The image light beam emitted from the image source 310 enters the first waveguide group 2211 after being collimated, and is coupled out of the first waveguide group 2211 through the coupling-in grating, the relay grating and the coupling-out grating in the first waveguide group 2211, the coupling-in grating has a selective effect on the light beam emitted from the image source 2111, and the light beam with a specific wavelength can be selected for transmission; the light beams not selected by the coupling-in unit of the first waveguide group 2211 enter the second waveguide group 2212, are coupled out of the second waveguide group 2212 through the coupling-in grating, the relay grating and the coupling-out grating in the second waveguide group 2212, and are spliced with the image light beams coupled out of the first waveguide group 2211 to form a complete view field image, and the complete view field image enters human eyes after being focused by the zoom element 12, so that a user feels an image with depth.
As another alternative embodiment, in fig. 11C, a beam splitter 350 may be disposed between the image source 2111 and the waveguide module based on the structure of the display module shown in fig. 11B. The beam splitter 350 may split the first field of view image S1 and the second field of view image S2 exiting the image source 2111 into a first waveguide set 2211 and a second waveguide set 2212 by wavelength.
How the beam splitter separates different wavelengths in the mixed beam, and then couples the separated wavelengths into the waveguide module, so that the coupling-out and splicing process is consistent with the embodiment of the near-eye optical display module, which is not described herein again.
The light beams subsequently coupled out of the waveguide module are spliced into an image to be displayed, and the process of focusing by the variable focus unit according to the depth information of the focusing position of the human eye in the image to be displayed is the same as that in the embodiment, and is not described herein again.
Meanwhile, in the embodiments shown in fig. 11A to 11C, similarly, the VR optical display module may further include a detector, such as an eye tracking camera or a binocular camera, to obtain a picture position focused by human eyes in real time, and the zoom element 23 performs focusing according to a depth of the position, so that an image in the VR display process has a depth, which is beneficial to improving user experience.
Embodiments of an AR optical display module (including a light compensation unit cooperating with a variable focus unit):
in the embodiment of the present invention, based on the concept of AR display, on the basis of the structure of the first group of embodiments of the near-eye optical display module or the structure of the combination of the first group of embodiments and the third group of embodiments, an optical compensation unit (described in detail later) used in cooperation with the variable focus unit is added to form the AR optical display module. The AR optical display module is suitable for AR display scenes. AR optical display module includes image segmentation unit, fiber scanning module, waveguide module, can zoom unit and light compensation unit, wherein:
the image segmentation unit is used for segmenting an image to be displayed into M sub-images, wherein M is an integer greater than or equal to 2; the M sub-images may be understood as M different field angle sub-images.
The optical fiber scanning module comprises an optical fiber scanner and an input light source, wherein the optical fiber scanner comprises at least one scanning optical fiber, each scanning optical fiber corresponds to one input light source, one input light source comprises one or more groups of light sources, and each group of light sources at least comprises R, G, B light-emitting units; and a scanning optical fiber scans and emits N sub-image light beams, the optical fiber scanner simultaneously scans and emits the M sub-images through the at least one scanning optical fiber, and the M sub-image light beams are collimated by the collimating optical system to form an image mixed light beam to be displayed, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and N is less than or equal to M. The structure of the fiber scanning module can refer to fig. 2A-2C and the corresponding contents, and will not be described herein again.
The waveguide module is arranged on an emergent light path of the optical fiber scanning module and is provided with a plurality of layers of coupling-in units and a plurality of layers of coupling-out units, and each layer of coupling-in unit is configured to couple in a light beam of one sub-image; and the emergent images of the mixed light beams of the image to be displayed after being coupled out by the coupling-out units of the corresponding waveguide modules are spliced into the image to be displayed.
The zooming unit is arranged on the light-emitting side of the waveguide module and is positioned on the light-emitting path and used for adjusting the focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed, and the image is emitted by the waveguide module.
And the optical compensation unit is arranged on the other side of the waveguide module opposite to the variable-focus unit and is used for offsetting the focal length corresponding to the variable-focus module, so that external natural light beams are not influenced by the variable-focus unit when entering human eyes, and the reality of the real scene in the AR is improved. The optical compensation unit may be any one of the refractive optical element or the diffractive optical element, or may be the same as the variable focal length unit, and any element that can cancel the focal length of the variable focal length unit on the external natural light beam entering the display module may be used as the optical compensation unit in the embodiment of the present invention.
In the embodiment of the invention, the variable-focus unit can be synchronously matched with the variable-focus unit when focusing a virtual image (an image to be displayed) formed by splicing light beams coupled out by the waveguide module, so that the AR optical display module is in a state of no focal power to the whole external image. For example, the focal length of the variable-focus unit acting on the external image is positive, the focal length of the optical compensation unit acting on the external image is negative, the variable-focus unit and the optical compensation unit can be mutually offset, the external image entering the display module can not be influenced, the external light beam entering the display module is real and natural, and the AR display effect is improved.
Fig. 12 is a schematic structural view of an AR optical display module according to an embodiment. In the figure, the optical fiber scanning module 31 may adopt one or more scanning optical fibers to scan and emit M sub-images corresponding to an image to be displayed, light beams of the image to be displayed enter the waveguide module 32, the light beams coupled out by the waveguide module 32 are spliced into a complete image to be displayed, the image to be displayed is focused by the variable focus unit 33 on the light emitting side of the waveguide module 32 and then guided into human eyes, meanwhile, the other side of the waveguide module 32 is provided with the optical compensation unit 34, and the optical compensation unit 34 processes external natural light beams entering the AR optical display module according to the focal length corresponding to the variable focus unit 33, so as to counteract the influence of the variable focus unit 33 on the external natural light beams.
Meanwhile, the AR optical display module may further include a detector, not shown in fig. 12, for detecting a position where the human eye is focused in the image to be displayed. The detector can be an eye-tracking camera or a binocular camera, and can detect the picture position focused by human eyes in real time, determine the distance between the human eyes and the focusing position, further focus the image to be displayed by the variable-focus unit 33 according to the depth of the position, and synchronously counteract the influence of the variable-focus unit 33 on the external natural light beams by the optical compensation unit 34 according to the focal length corresponding to the variable-focus element 33. The process of focusing by the variable focus unit 33 according to the depth of the focusing position of the human eye is the same as that in the embodiment of the near-eye optical display module, and is not described herein again. And, the optical compensation unit 34 cooperates with the variable focal length unit 33, and the technology for synchronously offsetting the focal length of the variable focal length unit 33 can be the prior art, which is not described herein again.
As an alternative embodiment, as shown in fig. 13A, in the AR optical display module, the optical fiber scanning module 31 passes through two scanning optical fibers (each scanning optical fiber scans and emits a light beam of a sub-field image, that is, N is 1), the variable focus unit 33 and the optical compensation unit 34 are respectively disposed at two sides of the waveguide module 32, and the variable focus unit 33 is located on the light-emitting path at the light-emitting side of the waveguide module 32. In the figure, the first fiber scanner 3101 emits the first view image S1, the second fiber scanner 3102 emits the second view image S2, and the first view image S1 and the second view image S2 can be spliced into a complete view image.
The image light beam emitted by the first fiber scanner 3101 enters the first waveguide group 3201 after being collimated, and is coupled out of the first waveguide group 221 through the coupling-in grating, the relay grating and the coupling-out grating in the first waveguide group 3201; the image light beams emitted by the second fiber scanner 3102 enter the second waveguide group 3202 after being collimated, are coupled out of the second waveguide group 3201 after passing through the coupling-in grating, the relay grating and the coupling-out grating in the second waveguide group 3202, and are spliced with the image light beams coupled out of the first waveguide group 3201 to form a complete field image; further, the entire field image is focused by the zoom element 33 and enters the human eye. The system also comprises an eye movement tracking camera which acquires the picture position focused by human eyes in real time, and the zooming element 33 carries out focusing according to the depth of the position; the compensation element 34 is used for matching with the zoom element 33 to synchronously offset the focal length of the zoom unit 33, so as to prevent the external natural light beam entering the display module from being affected by the zoom element 33.
As another alternative, as shown in fig. 13B, the fiber scanning module 31 emits at least two field images through one scanning fiber scan 3111, such as a first field image S1 and a second field image S2, which can be spliced into a complete field image, and the light beams of the first field image S1 and the second field image S2 can be distinguished by wavelengths, for example: the light beam of the first field-of-view image S1 is modulated by three colors of wavelengths R1, G1, B1, and the light beam of the second field-of-view image S2 is modulated by three colors of wavelengths R2, G2, B2.
The image light beams scanned and emitted by the optical fiber scanner 3111 enter the first waveguide group 3211 after being collimated, and are coupled out of the first waveguide group 3211 after passing through the coupling-in grating, the relay grating and the coupling-out grating in the first waveguide group 3211; the coupling grating has a selective function on the light beam emitted from the fiber scanner 3111, and can select a light beam with a specific wavelength for transmission. Light beams which are not selected by the coupling-in unit of the first waveguide group 3211 enter the second waveguide group 3212, are coupled out of the second waveguide group 3212 through the coupling-in grating, the relay grating and the coupling-out grating in the second waveguide group 3212, and are spliced with image light beams coupled out of the first waveguide group 3211 to form a complete field image; further, the entire field image is focused by the zoom element 33 and enters the human eye.
As another alternative embodiment, in fig. 13C, based on the structure of the display module shown in fig. 13B, a beam splitter 350 may be disposed between the optical fiber scanner 3111 and the waveguide module 32, and the beam splitter 350 may split the first field-of-view image S1 and the second field-of-view image S2 emitted from the optical fiber scanner 3111 according to wavelength, and misalign the first field-of-view image and the second field-of-view image into the first waveguide group 3211 and the second waveguide group 3212. How the beam splitter separates different wavelengths in the mixed beam, and then couples the separated wavelengths into the waveguide module, so that the coupling-out and splicing process is consistent with the embodiment of the near-eye optical display module, which is not described herein again.
Meanwhile, in the embodiments shown in fig. 13A to 13C, the AR optical display module may further include a detector, such as an eye tracking camera, for obtaining the image position focused by the human eye in real time; the zooming element 33 focuses according to the depth of the position, and meanwhile, the compensation element 34 is matched with the zooming element 33 to synchronously counteract the influence of the zooming unit 33 on the external natural light beams, so that the external natural light beams are corrected, and the display effect of AR display is effectively improved.
Of course, in addition to the optical fiber scanning module, the AR optical display module may also use other image generating units to modulate the light beams emitting M sub-images, and please refer to the related embodiments in the corresponding implementation process.
In all embodiments of the present invention, the "image to be displayed" may be a complete image or a partial image in a complete image, that is, the AR/VR optical display module in the embodiments of the present invention may be used as an independent module to process a complete view field picture alone, or may be used as a part of a splicing module to process only a partial view field picture, and the complete view field picture is realized after being spliced with a plurality of similar modules.
In all the embodiments of the AR/VR optical display module, as a preferred implementation, each group of waveguide substrates has a relay unit disposed therein for expanding the pupil along a direction perpendicular to the pupil expanding direction of the coupling-out unit, and the relay unit may be a relay grating or a mirror array. Taking the relay grating as an example in fig. 6, the coupling-out unit in the figure expands pupil in the Y direction, and the relay grating expands pupil in the X direction.
In all embodiments of the aforementioned AR/VR optical display module, when the image splitting unit splits the image to be displayed into a plurality of sub-images, the adjacent sub-images may or may not have the same image area, and when the adjacent sub-images have the same image area, there may be some overlapped portions in the splicing of the adjacent sub-images, but the image to be displayed is still presented to human eyes finally.
In addition, the embodiment of the invention also provides near-eye display equipment using the near-eye (such as AR/VR) optical display module in the embodiment of the invention. Two sets of near-eye (such as AR/VR) optical display modules can be arranged in the near-eye display equipment, and light rays emitted by the two sets of near-eye display modules are respectively led into the left eye and the right eye of a person, so that virtual reality display or augmented reality display is realized. Alternatively, the near-eye display device may include a group of near-eye display modules, and the light emitted from the near-eye display modules is guided into the left eye or the right eye of the person.
In one possible implementation, the near-eye display device may be a head-mounted display device, as shown in fig. 14. The near-eye display device may be configured with the near-eye (e.g., AR/VR) display module of the above-described embodiments and a head-mounted component (e.g., a temple or other wearing device) for wearing on the head of the user, and the near-eye display module may be mounted on the head-mounted component (e.g., the temple or other location) and positioned to direct the light beam to the eye of the wearer. Various changes and specific examples of the near-eye display module in the foregoing embodiments are also applicable to the near-eye display device in this embodiment, and through the foregoing detailed description of the near-eye display module, those skilled in the art can clearly know the implementation of the near-eye display device in this embodiment, so that for the sake of brevity of the description, detailed description is not repeated here.
All of the features disclosed in this specification, or all of the structures, methods, or steps in processes disclosed, may be combined in any combination, except combinations where mutually exclusive features and/or steps are present.
Any feature disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), may be replaced by alternative features serving equivalent or similar purposes, unless expressly stated otherwise. That is, unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature is only an example of a generic series of equivalent or similar features.
The invention is not limited to the foregoing embodiments. The invention extends to any novel feature or any novel combination of features disclosed in this specification and any novel method or process steps or any novel combination of features disclosed.

Claims (11)

1. An AR optical display module, comprising:
the image segmentation unit is used for segmenting an image to be displayed into M sub-images, wherein M is an integer greater than or equal to 2;
the optical fiber scanning module comprises an optical fiber scanner and an input light source, wherein the optical fiber scanner comprises at least one scanning optical fiber, each scanning optical fiber corresponds to one input light source, one input light source comprises one or more groups of light sources, and each group of light sources at least comprises R, G, B light-emitting units; a scanning optical fiber scans and emits N sub-image light beams, the optical fiber scanner simultaneously scans and emits the M sub-images through the at least one scanning optical fiber, and the M sub-image light beams are collimated by a collimating optical system to form an image mixed light beam to be displayed, wherein N is an integer greater than or equal to 1, and N is less than or equal to M;
the waveguide module is arranged on an emergent light path of the optical fiber scanning module and is provided with a plurality of layers of coupling-in units and a plurality of layers of coupling-out units, and each layer of coupling-in unit is configured to couple in a light beam of one sub-image; the emergent images of the mixed light beams of the image to be displayed after being coupled out by the coupling-out units of the corresponding waveguide modules are spliced into the image to be displayed;
the variable-focus unit is arranged on the light emitting side of the waveguide module, is positioned on a light emitting path, and is used for adjusting the focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed and emitted by the waveguide module;
and the optical compensation unit is arranged on the other side of the waveguide module opposite to the variable-focus unit and is used for offsetting the focal length corresponding to the variable-focus module.
2. The display module as claimed in claim 1, wherein when the fiber scanning module scans the M sub-images through the plurality of scanning fibers, the scanning beams of the plurality of image generating sub-units are spliced together before being incident on the waveguide module.
3. The display module according to claim 2, wherein the mixed beam of the M sub-images of the mixed beam of the image to be displayed emitted by the fiber scanning module corresponds to different wavelength ranges.
4. The display module according to claim 2 or 3, wherein when N is 1 and the fiber scanner comprises at least two scanning fibers, the scanning beams of at least two sub-images emitted by the at least two scanning fibers corresponding to scanning are coupled into the waveguide module in a misaligned manner.
5. The display module as claimed in claim 3, wherein when N is greater than or equal to 2, the fiber scanner modulates the mixed light beams of the N sub-images for each scanning fiber in a wavelength division multiplexing manner; the input light source corresponding to one scanning optical fiber comprises N groups of light sources, light generated by the N groups of light sources is input into one scanning optical fiber in the optical fiber scanner after being combined, and light emitting units with the same color channel in the N groups of light sources are configured to emit light with different wavelengths; when the optical fiber scanner comprises more than two optical fibers, the wavelength configuration of the input light source corresponding to each scanning optical fiber is the same.
6. The display module of claim 5, wherein the waveguide module comprises 3 × N layers of incoupling cells and 3 × N layers of outcoupling cells when each sub-image is modulated by R, G, B light-emitting cells, or the waveguide module comprises 3 × N layers of waveguides stacked, each layer of waveguide substrate having one layer of incoupling cells and one layer of outcoupling cells; each layer of coupling-in unit is configured to couple in only one wavelength of the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed, the coupling-in unit is a reflective grating or a light filter, and the coupling-out unit is a coupling-out grating or a coupling-out mirror array.
7. The display module of claim 5, wherein the display module further comprises:
and the beam splitter is arranged on the light-emitting optical path of the image generation unit and the light-incident optical path of the waveguide module and is used for separating the light beams with different wavelengths in the mixed light beam of the image to be displayed.
8. The display module according to any one of claims 1-3, wherein the display module further comprises:
the detector is used for detecting the focusing position of human eyes in the image to be displayed and determining depth information corresponding to the focusing position;
the variable focus unit is configured to adjust a focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed according to the depth information;
the optical compensation unit is configured to synchronously cancel a focal length of the variable focus unit.
9. The display module of claim 8, wherein the variable focus unit and the optical compensation unit are refractive optical elements or diffractive optical elements.
10. The display module of claim 9, wherein the waveguide material used in the waveguide module has a refractive index greater than 1.9.
11. An AR display device, comprising at least one set of AR optical display modules as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 10, for projecting light beams corresponding to an image to be displayed and adjusting a focal length corresponding to the image to be displayed.
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