Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Ashley Saulsbury

Bernard Charles Kress

Dmitry Reshidko

Robert Thomas Held

Ruben Caballero

Mohit Narang

Jouya Jadidian

An extended reality headset has light-based communication transceivers coupled to the extended reality headset. The relative position of a remote transceiver with respect to the current position and orientation of the extended reality headset is determined. A line-of-sight is calculated from the light-based communication transceivers to the remote transceiver. The light-based communication transceivers emit a light-based communications beam in accordance with the calculated line-of-sight. The light-based communications beam is adjusted in response to changes to the relative position of the remote transceiver with respect to the current position and orientation of the extended reality headset.

Optical over-the-air peer to peer communication for XR devices

Variable-focus lenses are arranged as a lens pair that work on opposite sides of a see-through optical combiner used in a mixed-reality head-mounted display (HMD) device. An eye-side variable-focus lens is configured as a negative lens over an eyebox of the see-through optical combiner to enable virtual-world objects to be set at a close distance. The negative lens is compensated by its conjugate using a real-world-side variable-focus lens configured as a positive lens to provide an unperturbed see-through experience. For non-presbyopes, the powers of the lenses are perfectly offset. For presbyopes, the lens powers is mismatched at times to provide simultaneous views of both virtual-world and real-world objects on the display in sharp focus. Responsively an eye tracker indicating that the user is engaged in close viewing, optical power is added to the real-world-side lens to push close real-world objects optically farther away into sharp focus for the presbyopic user.

Control of variable-focus lenses in a mixed-reality device for presbyopes

Examples are disclosed relating to tunable attenuation of incident light using a switchable grating. One example provides an optical attenuator comprising a switchable grating configured to diffract light within a wavelength band at a diffraction angle. The optical attenuator further comprises an electrode pair configured to apply a voltage across the switchable grating to tune a proportion of incident light diffracted at the diffraction angle, and an optical dump to receive the proportion of incident light diffracted.

Optical attenuation via switchable grating

An optical combiner in a display system of a mixed-reality head-mounted display (HMD) device comprises a lens of birefringent material and a ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) modulator that are adapted for use with a reflective waveguide to provide multiple different focal planes on which holograms of virtual-world objects (i.e., virtual images) are displayed. The birefringent lens has two orthogonal refractive indices, ordinary and extraordinary, depending on the polarization state of the incident light. Depending on the rotation of the polarization axis by the FLC modulator, the incoming light to the birefringent lens is focused either at a distance corresponding to the ordinary refractive index or the extraordinary refractive index. Virtual image light leaving the birefringent lens is in-coupled to a see-through reflective waveguide which is configured to form an exit pupil for the optical combiner to enable an HMD device user to view the virtual images from the source.

Combined birefringent material and reflective waveguide for multiple focal planes in a mixed-reality head-mounted display device

Variable-focus lenses are arranged as a lens pair that work on opposite sides of a see-through optical combiner used in a mixed-reality head-mounted display (HMD) device. An eye-side variable-focus lens is configured as a negative lens over an eyebox of the see-through optical combiner to enable virtual-world objects to be set at a close distance. The negative lens is compensated by its conjugate using a real-world-side variable-focus lens configured as a positive lens to provide for an unperturbed see-through experience. For non-presbyopes, the powers of the lenses are perfectly offset. For presbyopes, the lens powers may be mismatched at times to provide simultaneous views of both virtual-world and real-world objects on the display in sharp focus. Responsively an eye tracker indicating that the user is engaged in close viewing, optical power is added to the real-world-side lens to push close real-world objects optically farther away and into sharp focus for the presbyopic user.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Ashley Saulsbury