Design and fabrication of a holographic head-up display with asymmetric field of view

It is difficult to design and fabricate a head-up display (HUD) with a large asymmetric field of view (FOV) while maintaining a good image quality. In this paper, we design and develop such a holographic HUD system. To improve luminance and enhance the environmental adaptability of the HUD, we use a liquid crystal display with high brightness as well as a holographic reflection element. The vertical FOV is tilted to an angle of -7 degrees, which is consistent with the actual view of the pilot. The decentration and tilt of the optical relay system effectively compensate for the distortion and off-axis aberration due to the asymmetric FOV and tilted, curved combiner. The transition plates used in the mechanical structure significantly decrease the difficulty in fabrication and alignment, and virtual prototyping greatly reduces the risk and shortens the development cycle. Experimental results demonstrate that this prototype achieves a total FOV of 30 degrees (horizontal) x24 degrees (vertical), a resolution of 1280 x 1024, and a 5% distortion. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America