Many of us have or have tried some form of virtual reality, for a few virtual reality is a very unpleasant experience due to VR motion sickness. VR sickness is caused by conflicting signals sent to the brain from the person’s eyes, inner ear and body tissue sensory receptors.
Thanks to Cambridge engineers, VR sickness may no longer be a problem, as they have developed a new augmented reality (AR) head-mounted display (HMD) that delivers a realistic 3-D viewing experience, without the commonly associated side effects of nausea or eyestrain.
The device has an enlarged eye-box that is scalable and an increased field of view of 36º that is designed for a comfortable viewing experience. It displays images on the retina using pixel beam scanning which ensures the image stays in focus regardless of the distance that the user is fixating on.
In a study conducted with more than 50 participants between the ages of 16 – 60, the participants said that the images and videos to be of vibrant color and high contrast with no observable pixels. None of the participants experienced nausea or eyestrain even after prolonged periods of usage up to all-day testing.