Researchers Aim to Take the Bulk Out of Augmented Reality Wearables — By Beaming Images to Your Eyes

An international team of researchers are coming at the problem of bulky augmented reality (AR) wearables from an uncommon direction: instead of putting all the hardware in the glasses themselves, they want to simply beam images to the glasses instead — dramatically dropping the size and weight of the part you put on your face.

"This research aims to develop a thin and lightweight optical system for AR glasses using the ‘beaming display’ approach," explains first author Yuta Itoh, associate professor at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at the University of Tokyo, of the team's work. "This method enables AR glasses to receive projected images from the environment, eliminating the need for onboard power sources and reducing weight while maintaining high-quality visuals."

Traditionally, augmented reality glasses have to carry some form of display technology themselves — whether that's a transmissive LCD, a part-silvered mirror with a projector behind it, or even a laser projector pointed right into the user's eyes. That means bulk, from the display itself to the batteries required to power it, and that means weight — either making the glasses uncomfortable to wear or requiring them to be connected to a bulkier box elsewhere on the wearer's body.

Previous attempts to solve this by using an external off-body projector to generate the imagery shown to the user have struggled with keeping up with the viewer: moving your head by as a little as five degrees off-beam makes the image disappear. That's where the team's work comes in: a new waveguide system that boosts the angle over which the projected image can be seen enough to cope with natural head movement.

"By adopting diffractive optical waveguides, our beaming display system significantly expands the head orientation capacity from five degrees to approximately 20-30 degrees," Itoh explains. "This advancement enhances the usability of beaming AR glasses, allowing users to freely move their heads while maintaining a stable AR experience."

While 30 degrees is still far from what you can achieve with active all-in-one AR devices, whose overlaid imagery can be seen wherever the wearer looks, it's a big jump from what was previously possible — and the team is already looking to investigate the addition of head-tracking functionality to further boost the system's capabilities.

The team's work is to be presented at the IEEE VR 2025 conference later this month; a preprint of an earlier poster paper on the same topic is available from the Augmented Vision Lab, Itoh's research subgroup prior to his move to the University of Tokyo.