Smart Armor System

H.U.D./H.M.D. System (Helmet Mounted Display)

For those of you that don't know what a HUD system is, it is a Heads Up Display, which displays information on a translucent material, such as Google Glass. I had an idea for a H.U.D. actually right after the AT&T Arduino Competition. The original idea was a display for bike helmets, such as speed, compass heading, etc, as well as a safety system that would alert the motorcyclist to any vehicles that might appear in their blind spot. As a competitive cyclist, I could see how beneficial this might be, both in competition as well as during training. I am a huge Star Wars fan, and it quickly occurred to me that I could use one of my quirky projects to prototype it on: Star Wars Mandalorian armor. Quickly it became clear that I lack the resources to do a full HUD, so the idea has moved to more of an HMD (Helmet Mounted Display). I plan to prototype it on the armor, and then refine it to work on a motorcycle/bicycle helmet. To make the HMD, I plan to use an OLED screen from adafruit.com, pictured below.

I plan to mount this small OLED screen on the outside of the visor, then connect it to an Arduino Uno. On the beskar'gam (the armor), it will be attached to the range finder. For those of you out there who have not seen Star Wars (*tsk *tsk), here's a picture of a Mandalorian helmet, where you can see the visor location and the range finder above the helmet. 

I plan to mount a servo inside the helmet to allow the range finder, with attached OLED, to swing down in front of the visor, allowing the helmet to display information to the wearer. Eventually, I'd like to be able to include a screen capable of displaying video feed, which would allow the wearer to have a full 360 degrees field of view. I will also be using this as my armor build thread. 

July 1, 2013:

So far I have been preparing the helmet to handle the various needs of the wearer, as well as modifying it to ensure that it will be suitably accurate. The helmet was originally a standard Star Wars costuming helmet, which you could pick up anywhere. Below is a picture of the various pieces.

The first thing that I noticed about the helmet was how flimsy the back and cheeks were, and how the seam between the two helmet halves kept coming apart. In addition, the ear caps of the helmet were constantly falling off. To solve the problem of keeping it together, I bought some E6000 glue and cut up an old binder, and glued the strips to the seam of the helmet, as shown below. 

I also used some painter's tape to help keep everything in place as it dried, as the helmet seemed to just want to fall apart. The next thing I did was reinforce the back half of the helmet with a plastic embroidery wheel I found at target. The size fit perfectly for the helmet, and I used more E6000 to glue it in.

The plastic strips and the glue were definitely not going to keep the helmet together by themselves, and I also needed to find a way to cover up the seam across the top of the helmet as well as determine a method to attach the ear caps permanently. After some thought, I decided that I would use Bondo, an auto body filler, to accomplish both. But before I could do that, I had to sand the entirety of the dome to give it something to stick on to. After that, I ran to the store to grab some Bondo, and began. I used an old putty knife to paint it on, and let it harden a few days. Then I sanded it down to smooth it out, as is shown below.

Obviously, it still requires a lot more sanding and finishing work. The next step is to neaten up the helmet and spray it with some primer, which should reveal all the little holes in the Bondo covering, which I will then spot fill. Hopefully I will order the electronics soon, as I receive my earnings from my summer job in a few days. Once those arrive, the real fun begins!

September 2, 2013:

The helmet is looking a lot better! I located an old power sander in my attic and it has done wonders! In addition, I went out and purchased some primer and coated it with it. Obviously there are still a few modifications that need to be done, but it's looking rather good.

The armor itself is looking good! About a month ago I ordered two sheets of sintra, and have been cutting and shaping them for the armor. For those of you who don't know, sintra is a lightweight yet rigid board of moderately expanded closed-cell polyvinyl chlorid extruded in a sheet. Making the armor involves printing out a template, tracing it onto the sintra, cutting it with a jigsaw, then using heat to shape it to fit the contours of the wearer (me!). To accomplish the heating, I dug around in our attic and found an absolutely ancient heat gun that shoots out sparks every now and then. Luckily, nothing has caught fire as of yet. Below are some picture of the progress, from cutting to shaping to showing the armor on the flight suit.

Before shaping:

Before shaping on vest:

Before shaping on me:

Shaping a shin plate:

After shaping on flight suit:

The armor basically just needs a nice paint job and to be secured onto the vest via Velcro. In terms of the paint, I think I'll be using auto paint, which is supposed to work on plastic reasonably well. Below are some color schemes of the chest armor I've mocked up.

Hey everyone,

Over my fall break I resumed work on my armor, and over the past few days I have come leaps and bounds towards finishing the project. Hopefully it'll be finished before Halloween rolls around!
Yesterday I finished cutting out all the pieces and put a starting coat of paint on everything. One of the more difficult parts to work on was the gauntlets. There were no templates available for these, so I decided to design my own. The first thing I did was to determine the general dimensions of my forearm, which I then split into corresponding regions, in the shape of triangles (triangles are a lot easier to work with than rectangles in this case). By splitting my arm into triangular regions, I was able to tailor the gauntlets to a very exact degree. Below is a picture of the final template for the gauntlet.

After I finished cutting and shaping everything, I dropped by Home Depot and grabbed some spray paint. I wanted to go with a sort of stealthy gray and red look. Unfortunately, Home Depot did not carry any matte dark gray, so instead I purchased an array of paints that I hoped, when combined, would get me the look I was going for. This all turned out for the best, as you can see in the photos below. First off, I dusted everything in a light gray primer, which allows the paint more purchase on the plastic. Next off, I covered everything in a very light coat of "hammered metal" paint, which resulted in a light gray. After that, I dusted everything in an extremely light coat of dark brown, which gives the armor the mottled appearance you see below.

After hammered metal, before brown:

After brown:

Today, I woke up and began applying the red highlights. Unfortunately, it was raining outside so I could not get pictures of the process; I was dashing back and forth trying to keep everything dry! Below is the result.

Tonight I will be attaching the armor to the suit itself.


Overnight I attached the armor using various strips of velcro and webbing with clips that I then glued onto the plates. I have finished the construction of the armor itself, and am now working on incorporating the Heads Up/Helmet Mounted Display into the helmet. Unfortunately, I don't have a better photo than the one below as of yet, but here are some pictures of me and some friends goofing around on Halloween! And yes, I do know Mandalorians generally don't carry Lightsabers!