Design of an instrumented and AI-ready virtual reality headset for next-generation immersive applications (Phase 1)

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Recent projections suggest that the global augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) market will reach US$814.7 billion by 2025. These projections are driven by emerging applications across a wide range of domains, including entertainment, gaming, healthcare, aerospace and defense, manufacturing, retail, and education, to name a few. A large part of this growth will be in consequence of the implementation of 5G wireless communication networks, which promise faster speeds, lower latencies, wider coverage, and more stable connections, thus enabling AR/VR applications in which the user is no longer tethered to a machine. To fully unlock this potential, however, innovations are still needed in order to i) mitigate the effects of motion sickness, which still affects roughly 50% of VR users, ii) improve the user's perception of presence, immersion, and engagement, and iii) build applications that are tailored to a specific user (user-aware), thus improving the quality of experience (QoE). These innovations will only be made possible once neurophysiological sensors are embedded directly into the head-mounted display (HMD), thus allowing for user cognitive factors to be measured in real-time and used to adapt applications "on-the-fly" to maximize QoE. This proposal builds on intellectual property developed by the applicant on wearable biosignal quality measurement and enhancement, as well as on artifact-robust feature analysis; these are crucial features to make the recorded signals usable. As such, this I2I Phase 1 project will revolutionize VR applications across several verticals important to Canada, including healthcare, corporate training, and defence/aerospace, to name a few. The project will enable the development of a prototype to be used by industry across several sectors, many of which have already shown interest in trialing the device once it is ready.