Towards automatic freeform optics design: coarse and fine search of the three-mirror solution space

Abstract

Design of an optical system, whether classic or novel, in the past or the present, requires significant effort from the designer. In addition to design methods and theories, the designer’s skills and experience in optical system design are particularly important, which may require years of practice to learn. The diversity and variety of results are limited because of the difficulty, time, and labor costs required. In this article, we propose an automatic design method for freeform optics that can achieve a diverse range of three-mirror designs. The optical specifications and the design constraints are the only inputs required, and a variety of results can be obtained automatically. The output results have various structures and various optical power distributions with high imaging qualities. By implementing the design method, designers can not only realize an overview of the solution space of the three-mirror freeform system, but can also focus on specific designs.

Design Method for Freeform Off-Axis Three-Mirror Anastigmat Optical Systems with a Large Field of View and Low Error Sensitivity

“…TMA optical systems can simultaneously correct spherical aberration, coma, and astigmatism, and can achieve performance advantages such as a large relative aperture, achromaticity, good spot diagram energy concentration, and no central obstruction [1][2][3][4][5]. It has been successfully applied in optical systems of remote sensing cameras represented by QuickBird, CARTOSAT-1, HiRIC, etc.…”

Research on laser confocal free-form surface measurement method based on adaptive ant colony algorithm

“…However, the non-rotationally symmetric nature of free-form surfaces brings challenges to their high-precision measurements [1][2][3][4] .…”

Design of a Large Field of View and Low-Distortion Off-Axis Optical System Based on a Free-Form Surface

“…The free-form surface is widely used in panoramic optical systems, head-mounted displays, and off-axis reflective optical systems [15][16][17]. Free-form optics are optical surfaces with nonrotationally symmetric characteristics that can improve optical performance while enabling more novel features, reducing the size of rotationally asymmetric optical systems, and correcting system aberrations [18][19][20]. To date, the main parametric representations for optical free-form design include X-Y polynomials, Zernike polynomials, Q-polynomials, radial basis functions, and spline functions [21].…”