A number of companies that specialise in augmented reality (AR) have been rising to meet the demand for business and enterprise AR. Vuzix has been one of the most prominent, having established deals with a number of clients. The company has now announced that it has signed and agreement with a Tier-1 aerospace firm to build a customised avionics head-mounted display system.
Vuzix and the unnamed new customer have created a multi-stage development program which includes several pre-agreed milestones and payments. The first stage of the program is expected to be completed in Autumn 2018.
If the first phase is successful and the client company signs off on it, Vuzix expects to receive follow-on orders from the customer to finalise the development of the product along with the tooling needed to deliver commercial volumes of the custom AR waveguide system as early as the second half of 2019.
“We are excited to enter into this partnership and believe it represents a strong vote of confidence in our capabilities and recognition of our leading position within the waveguide optics technology space,” said Paul Travers, President and Chief Executive Officer at Vuzix. “Additionally, the agreement demonstrates how Vuzix is able to leverage and partner our industry leading optics technology with top tier global partners across a variety of vertical markets including commercial avionics.”
Vuzix have previously reported positive results over 2018 so far. The company showed a quarterly revenue for Q2 of 2018 of $2.6 million (USD), compared to $1.3 million for Q2 of 2017. Vuzix attributed the continued growth of the company to follow-on orders from clients who have completed pilot programs and converted to full-scale deployments as well as repeat customers.
The company experts this trend to continue, with increased demand for AR displays such as the M300 smart glasses. For future coverage on Vuzix and other VR and AR firms, keep checking back with VRFocus.