I Am Iron Man

Just about everybody who has seen the recent Iron Man films has dreamed about what it might be like to suit up as Iron Man. The heads-up display (HUD) in particular tends to inspire the imagination of moviegoers. The highly advanced computer interface provides the wearer with real-time information and tactical data like altitude, pitch, roll/tilt, heading, speed, GPS coordinates, and system information. It also has a very slick object detection algorithm that highlights objects of interest and displays a popover containing relevant information about them. All of this information is provided in a very clean, futuristic looking interface.

YouTuber Kersey Fabrications was pining away for an Iron Man helmet of his own, and while creating the design, he realized that many of the seemingly futuristic features of the HUD are actually possible to build with today’s technology. With some 3D printing know-how and a powerful, yet compact, NVIDIA Jetson computer, it turns out that ​​Kersey Fabrications was able to pull off a very convincing replica. PLA may not offer the superhuman durability of the fictional helmet, but as long as Obadiah Stane does not show up to call the bluff, no one would ever know that.

For a HUD, the displays are front and center, so they need to be chosen carefully to get a good end result. A pair (one for each eye) of 2.9 inch LCD screens with 2560 x 1440 resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate were selected. To capture clear images to drive these displays, a pair of Arducam Mini cameras with high-resolution IMX477 image sensors were chosen. One camera was to be positioned in each eye of the helmet, and each camera independently drove one of the displays to provide stereo vision.

For a good user experience, the images needed to be displayed in real-time, at high resolution, and with a high frame rate, all while overlaying all sorts of data and running object detection algorithms. Kersey Fabrications first turned to the NVIDIA Jetson Nano to provide the processing horsepower to bring the helmet to life. Testing looked quite good, however, as more and more algorithms were added to provide all of the functionality, it was discovered that the frame rate was at about 20 frames per second. Not bad at all under normal circumstances, but since the displays are the only view of the outside world that the wearer of the helmet would have, it was just a bit too slow.

With that knowledge, the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX, known as the world's smallest AI supercomputer, was swapped into the build. As you might expect with a computer capable of performing 21 trillion operations per second, Iron Man was no match for it. The display was able to provide real-time video even with all of the features turned on.

A few other sensors were needed to enable all of the helmet’s capabilities. A GPS module and a 9-DOF inertial measurement unit provided geographical coordinates, altitude, pitch, roll, heading, and more. Temperature and humidity sensors were added in to provide information about the environment in the helmet, and system information, like free memory, were provided by the Jetson. A Teensy 4.0 development board was also used to make connecting the sensors easy, since each of them has particular hardware requirements for the code libraries that they work with.

As for the helmet itself, Kersey Fabrications found a preexisting design and 3D printed it. He also designed and printed a mount for the cameras and displays, then made a few modifications to the helmet to slide it into place. Everything was mounted in a way that made the system modular and simple to work on.

Finally, to house the Jetson, a disk was printed with the intention of being worn on the chest. It was given some highlighting with silver spray paint and a ring of lights to complete the superhero effect. Likewise, the helmet was sanded, patched, and spray painted to give it a finished look. A custom fabric liner was even sewed inside to make it comfortable to wear the helmet for long periods of time.

The last step was to assemble the completed components. The electronics were powered by a 25,000 mAh, 20 volt laptop battery, which provides enough juice to keep Iron Man running for several hours.

A real world test of the helmet took place at a crowded convention, which showed that it was possible to successfully navigate using only the helmet’s displays. Object detection was going a bit batty with so many things to detect, so it was turned off, however. Later tests showed that this was due to a bug.

After fixing the bug, the helmet was taken for another spin at a park, and everything just worked. Kersey Fabrications really did pull it off — he showed that most of what we see in Iron Man’s HUD in the movies is actually possible with present technology. Check out the video below to see exactly how he pulled off this feat.