Daedalus: Why the Sony SMARTEyeglass?

DS - Can you tell me about the heads up display system you’ve developed using the Sony SMARTEyeglass Developer Edition?

RB - I reached out to a lot of people about the idea of some sort of head’s up display, and discovered the Imagination Factory. It’s a technology prototyping, R&D, Fab Lab-type bunch doing really interesting technology prototypes. They have a day a week like Google where they go off and experiment and do stuff. They loved this project so much that they said, ‘we know Sony, we’ll introduce you to them’. Then Sony really liked the idea, so they provided us with a SMARTEyeglass Developer Edition set.

HUD design by The Imagination Factory

The Imagination Factory set to work designing the housing and doing the custom Arduino, or Raspberry Pi, work required to arbitrate between the kit and the engine management system. Development goes really quickly. As an example, I need to take them the helmet tomorrow. And the shoulder mount which is sitting in the kitchen, along with the lid which is being 3D-printed upstairs. I’ve already posted the monocle to them, and they’re going to put it all together. It’s going to look nuts, absolutely insane!

First print of a prototype HUD unit

HUD test fitting – final version won’t be red!

 See more from our exclusive interview with Richard Browning below:

1. Gravity: The human propulsion flight suit
2. When did the idea to build an HPT system first come to you?
3. Can you tell us a bit about your engineering background?
4. Did you ever doubt that the Daedalus system would work?
5. Can you tell me about the HUD system you’ve developed using the Sony SmartEyeglass?
6. How fit do you need to be to ‘pilot’ Daedalus?
7. Are we heading for a new mode of personal transport?

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