Concatenated Backward Ray Mapping on the Compound Parabolic Concentrator

Abstract

Concatenated backward ray mapping is an alternative for ray tracing in 2D. It is based on the phase space descrip tion of an optical system. Phase space is the set of position and direction coordinates of rays intersecting an optical line. The original algorithm is limited to optical systems consisting of only straight line segments; we extend it to accommodate curved segments. The algorithm is applied to the compound parabolic concentrator, a standard optical system that collects parallel light and reshapes it to a focused beam. We compare the accuracy and speed of the extended algorithm to the original algorithm and Monte Carlo ray tracing. The results show that the extended algorithm outperforms both methods.