Performance and Tolerance Sensitivity Optimization of Highly Aspheric Miniature Camera Lenses

Miniature camera lenses are currently manufactured at volumes over 1 billion units per year. In this high volume industry, design methods that improve tolerance to manufacturing errors result in improved yield and significantly reduced cost. Few, if any, design for manufacture methods have been developed for this solution space, which is vastly different than traditional design as it is dominated by highly aspheric optics and compact design forms. In this paper, five design for manufacture methods that were developed for traditional designs are examined for their efficacy in improving the as-built performance of a well-corrected injection molded miniature camera lens. Building on the results of the evaluation, a new design for manufacture method is developed which is highly correlated to the sensitivities associated with this solution space and requires little computational overhead. The new method generates 1.3 times the number of improved solutions and produces a design with 1.7X looser tolerances than the starting point.