Beyond the initial focus on gaming and certain training applications, the potential of headworn AR, Mixed Reality (MR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies lies in the B2B market with capabilities that will reshape business processes or fundamentally recast customer experiences. The biggest disruptive digitizing step aims at delocalizing the smart content availability and connecting it to a person itself and its environment; wherever, whenever, in whatever situational awareness.
Unlike VR, which creates a totally artificial environment, AR uses the real environment and overlays new information on top of it, shifting attention from a hand-held display to the real world around us. MR is even more ambitious, merging and mapping artificial data with real life. Unfortunately, all this “XR”-technologies are fairly limited in their impact still today as they all have a joint flaw: not reacting to natural human gaze behaviour.
Therefore, an additional step is needed in order to bridge the gap between human being and technology: Eye Tracking technology allows to measure the eye activity in order to better understand sight, perception and reaction including emotions, providing a complete bi-directional communication with the environment and leading to much smarter user interactions.
The competitive edge of companies and economies is expected to jump forward once the organic digital integration of the individual into a digital workflow is feasible. However, barriers for that integration are high as the systems have to work reliably under nearly any conditions.
Digital Iris is the definitive tool to integrate the human being into the digital world. Through the most accurate Eye Tracking technology, Digital Iris allows to completely understand what a person sees, perceives and feels in real time under any environmental condition, providing for the first-time-ever Eye Tracking outdoor usability and creating a bidirectional interaction via video and audio with the user based on personalized situations. Adding to a head worn, functionally robust Eye Hyper Tracking (EHT) a robust Augmented Reality (AR) element, provides the most authentic experience, generating useful information reliably for the user depending on the environment and his/her reactions via the strongest sense: the eye. This intuitive ‘Human Machine Interface’ (i-HMI) will immerse the user into a complete digital loop, opening up complete new and disruptive applications in industry, mobility and medicine, among others.
The main objectives to be achieved in course of the project are:
- To increase Eye Tracking software robustness.
- To move from a manual End-of-Line (EOL) calibration process to an automated EOL calibration process, reduce the initial user calibration from the current 3-minute process to a 10-second process.
- To implement a high-resolution front view camera (13 MP), large viewing angle (90º) and object recognition for user feedback.
- To provide 4G+/5G technology through an integrated chip included in the Smart Unit.
- To implement bi-directional audio and video communication under harsh conditions.
- To increase the overall physical robustness, especially for the key functional 3Cam-Tripod, using reinforced materials and enforced snap-mounts.
- To implement HDR/High-Resolution CMOS nose pad sensors for high functional robustness and reliability level at gaze tracking.
