On the tolerancing of illumination devices

摘要

The tolerancing of optical devices is of importance in many industrial applications. Illumination devices that produce a cut-off line in the light distribution are examples where demanding requirements have to be met. The approaches that will be presented are used as a prerequisite to make these illumination devices more robust, i.e. relatively insensitive to position tolerances and to adverse conditions under which they have to be operated. Emphasis will be laid on LED optics that feature high optical efficiency.rnThe method of optical transfer matrices represents a convenient tool to study optical devices in a paraxial approximation. The results of such calculations also provide a guideline on how to plan the numerical simulations. This is helpful, because the simulations that have to be performed in this branch of illumination engineering are quite time-consuming.rnTo sum up the simulation results abstract representations will be used. They are considered helpful to keep the overview in a wealth of data gained by automated simulations and to communicate them in a concise way. Tolerancing within tight requirements prescribed by legislation for safety reasons, as it is typical for frontlighting applications, will be addressed.