AUTOMATED DESIGN OF THE OPTICAL SYSTEM OF THE ZOOM RIFLESCOPE

Abstract

It is proposed to perform an automated design of a multi-lens optical system of a zoom riflescope by using one of modern global optimization algorithms, namely the adaptive Cauchy differential evolution method. The optical system considered here provides the magnification 4-16× and the angular field of view in the object space from 5.15° to 1.32°. It has the entrance pupil diameter of 42 mm, the exit pupil distance within 85...90 mm, and the maximum system length of 325 mm. The riflescope contains 14 lenses in 9 components made of glasses from the CDGM catalog. In all zoom configurations of the optical system, any ray vignetting is absent. To achieve the high image quality, the parametric synthesis of the riflescope has been carried out simultaneously for five intermediate configurations, corresponding to magnifications 16×, 13×, 10×, 7× and 4×. By using the developed specialized software, an experimental examination of the operability of this approach has been performed on the example of automated design of the optical system having the parameters similar those found in commercially available samples. The performed simulation showed that the time interval required for direct automated design of the riflescope’s optical system is about 25 hours. The total number of unknown parameters (variables) was up to 90. The root-mean-square values ​​of the angular aberrations of the axial beams in all (five) configurations of the synthesized zoom system do not exceed 1 arc minute in the whole spectral range. The obtained results indicate that the design algorithm implemented in the computer program can be considered an effective tool capable to perform automated parametric synthesis of complex zoom optical systems with high image quality. The algorithm enables to establish the prescription data of optical systems, taking into account the technical requirements and restrictions specified by the designer.