The patent pending I-PORTTM is a highly versatile, hands-free, low profile near-eye display system. It was
originally designed with the medical market in mind as a data (monocular) or surgical (binocular) head
worn display. The concept takes advantage of a technique used with surgical loupes where they are
sometimes mounted "into" eyeglasses. The I-PORTTMdisplay module is similarly mounted onto or into the
spectacle lens of protective eyewear or sunglasses.
The I-PORTTM is capable of various fields of view and resolutions while being low profile providing
minimal obscuration. It is an ideal remote viewer for medical, military and commercial equipment. Our
system is capable of producing fields of view greater than 50 degrees in full color and can incorporate
either organic light emitting diode, (OLED) or active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) image sources
of various resolutions.
The design of a wide field-of-view head-mounted display (HMD) is very challenging. Unfortunately, traditional design methods produce low-resolution imagery that is unacceptable for some tasks. One method of addressing this challenge is to optically tile several smaller field-of-view displays to form a single, wide field-of-view, high-resolution image. This paper will address design issues specific to optically tiled system including otpical performance, seam placement and binocular rivalry.
A symmetric two element, 10X eyepiece has been designed using a combination of refractive and diffractive surfaces. Each element consists of a diffractive and refractive surface to form a hybrid optic. The symmetry of the design combined with loose manufacturing tolerances provides an extremely cost effective approach to obtaining high-quality imaging. The diffractive surfaces achromatize the design which enables manufacture with a single optical material. During injection molding production of the hybrid element, the measured diffraction efficiency at the edge of the clear aperture ranges between 96 - 98% at the design wavelength of 558 nm. The lateral color, which is a critical aberration to correct in high- performance eyepieces, has been measured for the hybrid design and found to match within 1.2 micrometers of its theoretical value.
For applications in Doppler radar processing, it is necessary to convolve a one-dimensional signal with spatially scaled versions of a single reference. To achieve this one can expand the reference in one dimension, image it though a system that has variable-magnification in this dimension, and perform a one- dimensional convolution with the input signal in the orthogonal direction. To realize the variable magnification imaging system, we consider the construction of a telescope that uses two hybrid diffractive-refractive elements. The refractive component for the elements is a cylindrical lens that provides bias focussing power. The diffractive component for the first element provides the modulation of the optical power necessary to achieve variable- magnification. The second diffractive component is used to correct the phase of the output image and produce a collimated output. Closed form and iterative designs are presented.
The requirements for head-mounted displays (HMDs) continue to become more demanding. Increased light throughput, reduced weight and higher optical performance mandates the use of new optical technologies. Diffractive optical elements can provide the optical designer additional degrees of freedom to develop more sophisticated lightweight color HMD systems. A method of design is discussed along with several manufacturing methods for producing diffractive elements including single-point diamond turning and laser pattern generation. Due to the unique characteristics of diffractive elements regarding efficiency and diffraction orders, it is vitally important to properly characterize and test these systems. The efficiency of a diffractive element can have a profound impact on the performance of the optical system; therefore, it is necessary to accurately measure the diffraction efficiency and correctly interpret the impact on the MTF. An example of a hybrid diffractive/refractive relay lens is presented to demonstrate the relationship between the MTF and diffraction efficiency.
Diffractive (or binary) optics offers unique capabilities for the development of high- performance, low-weight optical systems for space-based sensors. The basic operating principles of diffractive optical elements along with fabrication methods suitable for production of diffractive elements for space-based applications are described. Several potential applications where diffractive optics may serve as a key technology for improving the performance and reducing the weight and cost of sensors for the Geostationary Earth Observatory will be discussed. These applications include the use of diffractive/refractive hybrid lenses for the Lightning Mapper Sensor, diffractive telescopes for narrowband imaging and subwavelength structured surfaces for antireflection and polarization control.
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