Motorcycle HUD

Disclaimer... I am a complete newbie. I literally will be starting this project from scratch, both from the stand point of knowledge and technology. I do believe that I am ambitious enough to get through it but don't know where to begin.

I desire to make a HUD for my motorcycle helmet. Please do not comment on the safety or legal elements. I will handle these elements on my own and don't need to be reminded that safety, and the law, are important.

What I'd like to see:

  1. A display element embedded into the front area of a full face helmet, just under the shield. I'd like this to project an image onto the shield itself. I do understand that there is an issue with getting the projection to focus properly. If pointed in the right direction, equipment wise, I try to get through this difficulty.

  2. I'd like to see an Arduino setup that would both take in data and drive the projection, preferably using bluetooth to connect to my iPhone. My thought is that the Arduino would handle the connectivity and display, but that the iPhone would handle the computational stuff. The GPS on the iPhone could handle speed, for example, and feed that over to the Arduino.

2b) As an alternative, I could bypass the iPhone altogether and feed data directly in from the motorcycle.

Step 2 would be more involved on the iPhone side, requiring some training with iPhone development.

Step 2b would be more involved on the motorcycle side.

I am convinced that this is a pretty involved project, but no one seems to be taking this idea on. I'd be happy to buy one if they were available, but since they aren't I'd really like to see what you all think.

If any of you would be willing to give me a rough equipment list, that would be great.

I appreciate your time, thank you.

Sounds like an interesting idea, for sure. All I can comment on is the projection onto the face shield. A real HUD on an aircraft is projected to be focused at infinity. That way as the pilot is looking outside, his eyes do not have to refocus onto the displayed information. Try reading a book at the distance of the motorcycle face shield, then look at some distant object, and you will soon see the problem.

I do not know how a HUD is able to overcome this, except that it is more than a simple projection onto an opaque screen.

P.S. I think you could do your entire project without using a phone.

Sounds cool I want one when you're finished :wink:

I don't know much about HUD displays, but I've been working with GPS for 15 years if you have any questions about interfacing with Arduino. My background is automotive manufacturing, I helped design the EEC-IV process. A long time ago I wrote code to calculate acceleration and lean angle. My senior project was a physics simulator. And of course I love Motorcycles of all types...

The physical display is by far and away the most difficult portion of this build.

There was a company called Motion Research Corporation that built a display like this a few years ago, but they no longer seem to exist.

You're not going to get anywhere projecting onto the plane of the shield itsself, there's nothing you'll be able to do to bring that image into focus (the same way you can't bring a slide projectors image into focus by putting on glasses) You need some way to focus that image to infinity like John says and bounce that directly into the eye. There is a special type of glass or glass coating that is used for this, but I never got particularly far in my own personal research on the matter.

Interfacing with the bike directly is fairly easy and there are a whole bunch of cycle and automotive projects out there to look for inspiration. I seem to have had the most technical problems out of the bunch with my own prototype (EMI issues mainly) so you chances are your hardware won't be all that difficult to put together.

If the helmet HUD is your absolute make-or-break issue for this project then I would start developing that first before doing anything else at all, but if you're willing to potentially scale back to just a regular dashboard display then I would start on the bike interface hardware first as it will be far cheaper to develop and you'll likely get much further along in your project sooner.

Focus for 20 feet. From there out to infinity is the same eye focus. Don't think so, ask an optometrist.

http://www.digilens.com/faq.html

Thoughts?

Looks like a good start, give them a call and see if you can weasel a free sample. I'm guessing they're more of a technology company, everything on their site seems to be ideas or concepts but there's only one way to find out.

extent:
Looks like a good start, give them a call and see if you can weasel a free sample. I'm guessing they're more of a technology company, everything on their site seems to be ideas or concepts but there's only one way to find out.

Something to keep in mind is that the guy behind this (founder/ceo) is the same guy who founded W Industries back in the 1990s, Dr. Jonathan Waldern:

You probably won't be able to "weasel" a free sample, unless you have something more than a concept in mind (that, and probably a few dollars and a signed NDA). Still worth inquiring about, though, as it looks to be pretty fascinating technology...

I'm trying to get my head around the optics for this, and as far as I can see it would involve projecting your image through a lens that is focussed on infinity (ish) i.e. parallel light stream, reflect this off a half-silvered mirror in your line of sight so that the beam pointed at the lens of your eyeball. The eyeball's cornea/lens will then focus the beam onto the retina so you get a coherent image.

In this case, it seems to me that the beam containing the image would be very narrow and positioning of the projector and mirror relative to the eyeball would be critical. Correct positioning might be hard to achieve since the eyeball and helmet are both likely to be moving around a fair bit. It seems to me that you need to play (very carefully) with focussed images reflected into somebody's eyeball. This is all about lenses and reflectors, not Arduinos and phones. I'd suggest you use the same precautions they use when observing the sun: your original image should be projected onto a sheet that you look at, not projected directly into your eye.

I seem to recall seeing wearable screens used for Augmented Reality headsets so it might be worth googling for existing technology for the optical side of things.

It would be best to limit the display and never let it into your directly forward view. Murphy was an optimist.

I couldn't make out whether this fellow actually used this in a helmet but there are definitely some ideas there. http://www.instructables.com/id/GPS-HUD-for-SnowmobileMotorcycle-Helmet/

he describes using an oled display with the text reversed so it can be read when reflected on a piece of plexiglass.

I don't know if motorcycles have ODB-II-Ports, but i have a device called "PLX KiWi WiFi Adapter" which sends the whole data of my car (speed, fuel-level, mpg, temperature sensor data, fault codes,...) from the ODB-Port to my iPhone via WiFi.
Maybe this could be helpful for you?

As a former biker I would also advise you to think about if you end up using your helmet to keep the road out, what might happen between your head and any hard bits inside that helmet. You could easily end up with more than a Harry Potter scar.

GoForSmoke:
As a former biker I would also advise you to think about if you end up using your helmet to keep the road out, what might happen between your head and any hard bits inside that helmet. You could easily end up with more than a Harry Potter scar.

+1.

As cool as this project sounds, you wouldn't be able to build it without modifying the helmet. I can't see you getting any components in a properly fitting full face helmet, without removing some (critical) padding.

I am trying to figure this exact problem out myself! As far as I can tell it will be HARD. Not because the physics of light/lenses is all that difficult but because of packaging limitations (small, lightweight and non-intrusive to the original helmet eg no altering of the physical structure).

Some reading material:

Chapter from a book(?) explaining HMDs the sources portion of this is interesting, see the 4th link

practical application of the lens equation to explain the workings of collimating light (making the focal distance infinity (or the horizon)

optics broken down for you

an OLED display that might be small enough to package into a helmet.

http://www.optics-online.com/pxs.asp
Source for the lenses needed to manipulate the light into collimation (not sure that is a real word....)

The motion research product was a great idea, poorly implemented. I read reviews of it and it seemed like a DIY person with no manufacturing expertise on their side brought a product to market before its time. (almost like Honda's first Insight, not that Honda doesn't know how to build anything they decide to build, but that car was poorly timed.)

Some background: one of the senior design groups in college (I have a BS/EE, and get the dubious honor of driving a desk) designed and retro-fitted a Helmet mounted display into a Shoei RF-1000 (not my group). It had RPM and speed projected onto a dangerous looking piece of poly carbonate that was affixed to the inside of the shield. The rest of the helmet design also included an MP3 player with controls mounted in the chin space (I could jut my chin out just enough to touch the buttons but not actually push them. {It wasn't designed for chin control, it's just that the space was that tight.}) Brake and turn signal LEDs mounted IN the rear "wing" of the helmet were also features of the helmet. I don't recall if anything else was in there, but I waited for a while, thinking they would actually bring their design to market, but they never did. So I decided to start developing my own version starting with the easy parts: brake lights and turn signals. I have yet to actually mount the electronics, but I do have it sorted out. So, at present, I have a functional wireless, helmet-mount(able) brake and turn signal apparatus. The controller is enclosed in a small project box and is powered by a Li-Po cell. It is a single controller design to minimize the cost with the controller being on the helmet. Still, it is around $100 in parts alone, assuming you have the tools to assemble it all.

So, now that you have been sufficiently bludgeoned with (arguably) boring info, care to collaborate?

As far as I can tell the physics is painfully simple. The size and packaging ease is pretty much inversely proportional to the cost one is willing to pay to get this done.

BTW, I ride a 2k7 Honda 919.

hello,

1st time posting here. i came across this thread during a search for Helmet HUD and figured i'd chime in. I've been successfully using an HMD in my shoei rf-1000 helmet for over a year now and will say the added safety enhancements alone make it hard for me to ride without it. Anyways for the display i use a micro display unit from micro optics and mount it inside the helmet with powerful magnets which keeps the unit stable yet adjustable at all times. 90% of the time i have it connected to a rearview camera attached to the rear of my bike (gsxr 750). This allows me a 170 degree viewing angle of everything behind me, eliminating all blind spots with a simple glance. finally im able to connect and view a live image of my iphone with a simple cable swap for turn by turn gps, mph , etc

hud.JPG

1 Like

Do you have any more information on the display you used? Micro optics and micro display are getting lost in a sea of generic search results.

extent:
Do you have any more information on the display you used? Micro optics and micro display are getting lost in a sea of generic search results.

ditto. This is precisely the type of display I'd like to use. Do you have a problem with focusing near then far/vice versa?

No issues, the optics are designed for near eye viewing. Name of the company is Kopin . As you will see (link below) the optics alone are a bit pricy. If anyone is interested i have a complete rig (optics, driver board, controller unit =housing w/controls and rechargeable battery, plus special cable to allow connecting to an iphone) for 200.00 + shipping. No assembly required, just open the box, power it up and youre ready to go.

http://www.tekgear.com/index.cfm?pageID=2&section=103&function=viewproducts&nodelist=1,103

Thanks for the info, those ARE pricey. PM'd for details on rig.