---
config:
  theme: redux
  layout: dagre
---
flowchart TD
 subgraph INPUT["Input"]
        HAND_TRACKING_CAMERA["Hand Tracking Camera"]
        SLAM_CAMERA["SLAM Camera (Self location)"]
        EYE_TRACKING_CAMERA["Eye tracking Camera"]
        IMU["Inertia MU"]
  end
 subgraph OUTPUT["Output"]
        MIPI_DISPLAY["MIPI DSI Displays"]
        SOUND_CARD["Sound Card"]
  end
 subgraph HARDWARE["Hardware"]
        CM5["RPi CM5"]
        PMIC["PMIC (Power management)"]
        INPUT
        OUTPUT
  end
 subgraph XR_SYSTEM["XR System"]
        drivers["Low-Level Drivers"]
        drm["Linux DRM"]
        OPEN_XR_RUNTIME["OPEN_XR_RUNTIME"]
        apps["XR applications"]
  end
 subgraph DRIVERS["OpenXR Drivers"]
        display_drivers["Display Drivers"]
        hand_tracking_drivers["Hand Tracking Drivers"]
        slam_drivers["SLAM Drivers"]
  end
 subgraph OPEN_XR_RUNTIME["Custom OpenXR Runtime"]
        DRIVERS
        Compositor["Compositor"]
        OpenXR_ST["OpenXR State Tracker"]
        InteractionEngine["Interaction Engine (optional)"]
  end
 subgraph LAUNCHER["Custom Launcher"]
        Launcherapp["Launcher Application"]
        WebXR["WebXR Runtime (chromium)"]
        WebXRapps["WebXR Applications"]
  end
    CM5 -- output MIPI DSI --> MIPI_DISPLAY
    CM5 -- I2S (optional) --> SOUND_CARD
    PMIC <== I2C ==> CM5
    IMU -- SPI --> CM5
    HAND_TRACKING_CAMERA -- USB --> CM5
    SLAM_CAMERA -- USB --> CM5
    EYE_TRACKING_CAMERA -- optional input --> CM5
    drivers --> HARDWARE
    drm --> drivers
    apps -- OpenXR --> OPEN_XR_RUNTIME
    display_drivers --> drm
    hand_tracking_drivers --> drivers
    slam_drivers --> drivers
    Compositor --> DRIVERS
    OpenXR_ST --> DRIVERS
    InteractionEngine --> DRIVERS
    WebXR -- OpenXR --> OPEN_XR_RUNTIME
    WebXRapps --> WebXR
    Launcherapp -- OpenXR --> OPEN_XR_RUNTIME
    Launcherapp --> WebXRapps
    HAND_TRACKING_CAMERA@{ shape: rect}
    SLAM_CAMERA@{ shape: rect}

Project Documents

Website Description

Hardware

Standalone Hardware Rev. 1

Standalone Demo Ideas

Software

Subproject: Standalone Launcher

Subproject: OpenXR Runtime

Subproject: V35ZSM Panel Driver

Admin

Task Creation

Meeting Minutes

Motivation

Project Northstar is an open-source mixed-reality headset originally developed by Leap Motion. As an open-source project, it remains relatively impressive with a great field-of-view, high resolution, and a straightforward setup.

Currently, the Northstar headset requires linking to external hardware (e.g. a PC) to be functional. Though this had been a common requirement in older headsets, newer headsets like the Meta Quest 3 have dropped this setup and have become standalone. That is, they no longer require any external hardware other than the headset itself.

So, at UWRL, we’ve decided to take it a step further and ask: How can we make Project Northstar standalone? Though seemingly a straightforward task, this has become an involved project requiring effort in both hardware design and software development.

Overall, completion will involve (from lowest to highest abstraction level):

• Designing a standalone derivative of an open-source PC-based headset (based on the Raspberry Compute Module 5)
• Implementing and/or debugging drivers to ensure hardware compatibility (e.g. we’re writing a display driver from scratch)
• Installing and debugging an OpenXR Runtime so that our headset can run XR applications (we’ll be using Monado)
• Developing a custom XR launcher application to expose a base user interface (built with Godot)

Resources