A Multi-Plane Augmented Reality Head-Up Display System Based on Volume Holographic Optical Elements With Large Area

The traditional head-up display (HUD) system has the disadvantages of a small area and a single display plane, here we propose and design an augmented reality (AR) HUD system with multi-plane, large area, high diffraction efficiency and a single picture generation unit (PGU) based on holographic optical elements (HOEs). Since volume HOEs have excellent angle selectivity and wavelength selectivity, HOEs of different wavelengths can be designed to display images in different planes. Experimental and simulated results verify the feasibility of this method. Experimental results show that the diffraction efficiencies of the red, green and blue HOEs are 75.2%, 73.1% and 67.5%. And the size of HOEs is 20 cm × 15 cm. Moreover, the three HOEs of red, green and blue display images at different depths of 150 cm, 500 cm and 1000 cm, respectively. In addition, the field of view (FOV) and eye-box (EB) of the system are 12° × 10° and 9.5 cm × 11.2 cm. Furthermore, the light transmittance of the system has reached 60%. It is believed that this technique can be applied to the augmented reality navigation display of vehicles and aviation.