Work

Design a conformal optical system based on Fermat's principle

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The conformal optical systems are tremendously applied in precision-guided weapons. A corrector is traditionally used to compensate for the dynamic aberrations of an ellipsoidal dome. In this paper, what we believe to be a novel method is proposed to design conformal optical system based on Fermat's principle. The corrector needn't be required in the conformal optical system. The optical path distances (OPD) between the incident spherical wavefront and the rotating center of the imaging system are all set to be equal when the rays entering from different look angles, so the ellipsoidal dome acts as a spherical dome. The inner surface of the dome is calculated to ensure an identical OPD. At last, a conformal optical system is designed with a fineness ratio of 1, a diameter of 120 mm, the field of regard of ±60°, an F-number of 1.2 for the mid-wave infrared 3.7-4.8µm. The example demonstrates the feasibility of designing a conformal optical system using Fermat's principle.

Source: Optics Express

DOI: 10.1364/oe.560720

Authors: Cunhua Zhao, Xuteng Chen, Binqian Niu

Institution: Luoyang Normal University

Language: English

Topic: Advanced optical system design

Subfield: Biomedical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,270

Funder: Science and Technology Department of Henan Province