Lark Optics is targeting your retina for AR without the nausea and other discomfort

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Whether you believe it’s the future of everything, or just a useful tool that will be part of the mix of technology we regularly use in a few years from now, augmented reality is a rapidly evolving field. Which has one major drawback – like VR, it can leave you feeling sick.

For example, US troops who tried out Microsoft’s HoloLens glasses last year suffered “‘mission-impacting physical impairments’ including headaches, eye strain and nausea,” according to Bloomberg. informed of,

While the technology “could bring $1.5 trillion in net economic benefits by 2030” according to pwcThis disease is a major inhibitor of the development of AR and VR.

A startup is based in Cambridge to tackle the problem Lark OpticsWhich has developed a way to circumvent the issues that cause these problems.

“In the real world, we perceive depth by moving and focusing our eyes. Two different signs need to work in harmony. However, in all existing AR glasses, these signals are fundamentally mismatched,” explains Pawan Shrestha, CEO of Lark Optics.

The focus on the ‘virtual screen’ on augmented reality glasses means users have to switch focus between the real world and the augmented one. This depth mismatch causes physical discomfort and conditions such as nausea, dizziness, eye strain and headache.

What Lark Optics does differently, Shrestha says, is that it projects the augmented reality image onto the user’s retina. This means that the AR is always in focus no matter what your eyes do to adjust to the real world around you.

So far the startup has developed a proof of concept and is now iterating to refine its demonstrable model. Shrestha says they conducted two successful user studies with their proof of concept; One in his lab and the other with an external partner he prefers not to name.

when the technology is ready, they want to use a supposed models for production of the components they design, which they will then sell to original equipment manufacturers who make AR headsets.

Given that they’re addressing such a fundamental challenge to mass adoption of AR, it’s not surprising that other companies are tackling it in other ways (more on that below). But Shrestha says his startup’s approach is the most efficient in terms of processing power and battery power, and doesn’t affect the user’s field of vision.

Shrestha grew up in rural Nepal (“Really rural… I was about nine years old before I saw electric lights”). He says his parents’ enthusiasm for his education eventually led him to New Zealand where he earned a master’s degree in electronics engineering from the University of Waikato.

keen to develop technology that he can commercialize, he says he has developed a interferometer, While that venture didn’t come to fruition, his work led him to pursue a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he saw the commercial potential of a new approach to AR displays.

“It was scientifically challenging, but it was also something that could touch many lives,” he says.

Shrestha co-founded Lark Optics (formerly known as AR-X Photonics) with his friend Xin Chang and Daping Chu, who previously supervised Shrestha and Chang’s PhD work. The three have been working together for nearly a decade, but only started last year with Lark Optics,

Shrestha says this week he is joined by a new recruit, Andreas Georgiou, who previously worked at Microsoft as a principal researcher in the field of optical engineering.

Perhaps surprisingly, Shrestha says that being based in Cambridge is a huge advantage for him, with a community of experienced advisors around him and access to relevant investors. He’s particularly inspired by the progress made by Micro LED tech startup porotecwho has accumulated total $26.1 million to date.

And Shrestha has warm words for the Enterprise Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering, of which he is a part, It provides up to £75,000 in equity-free funding to cover mentoring, training and coaching as well as salaries and business costs. This allowed him to begin developing Lark Optics as a business.

Lark Optics raised a pre-seed round of £210,000 last October, Shrestha says, and will raise a seed round in Q2 this year.

As noted above, others are tackling the problem of AR disease in different ways. Latinar uses a ‘pin mirror’ method, Kura Technologies developed a ‘structured geometric waveguide eyepiece’, while flaming cue “Calculation[s] Holograms in real time and integrated on low power devices[s] them with off-the-shelf display hardware.

another company, see real Develops holography-based solutions to address depth issues in 3D displays.

But Shrestha says that these rival technologies either require very high levels of data throughput with associated computational and battery power overhead, or very high resolution displays. While few technologies separate the AR display from the real world the way Lark Optics does, Shrestha says they are “looking through a chicken fence.”

“We solved the problem without getting significant penalties on processing power or battery power, or artifacts. So I think our approach is the best.”

Lark Optics’ ambition is to establish itself as the best optics for AR, VR and Mixed Reality glasses.

“We want to realize the full potential of AR and VR. Now we have AR and VR that you can wear for 20 minutes or 30 minutes. We want to make it natural to see real objects, VR, or AR, and people want to allow us to use it for all-day, everyday use.

Shrestha sees the biggest challenge in achieving this as being able to recruit the right people in a very specific field. But he’s optimistic that attracting just one or two high-level people will end up attracting more, and the growth backing of a good seed round in the coming months won’t hurt either.

AR, VR and MR have been heavily promoted in recent years, but questions have been raised about how much of a future it has. Investors worried over Meta’s heavy spending and Microsoft’s heavy spending in the Metaverse ‘space’ job cuts With its HoloLens division struggling to turn this into a viable business, it shows that there is no straight line from here to a future where this technology is widely used.

But that said, the current blow to the public markets on stock prices and tech company spending isn’t quite the end all the way for AR, VR, and MR. Apple’s first headset is on the horizon, which will undoubtedly spark another wave of interest in the space (though the latest report says it’s been delayed by two months, till june,

If a technology like Lark Optics can help prepare AR, VR and MR for the mainstream, the startup may be well positioned to reap the rewards.

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