Correcting conformal dome optical aberrations by using a rotating freeform optical element

The air resistance of the spherical dome is higher than that of the conformal dome flying at high Mach speeds. For improving the aerodynamic performance of the system, the conformal dome is preferred. But the conformal dome reduces optical performance due to its shape and characteristics. For this reason, the optical design is corrected by using dynamic lenses with freeform surfaces. The aberration induced due to the conformal characteristics of the dome is corrected by using dynamic lenses with Chebyshev polynomial surfaces. The Ansys Zemax OpticStudio program is used to design and analyze optical systems with the conformal dome. First, the optical system that is looking through a conformal dome is designed with paraxial surfaces, and then it is converted to thick lenses. The optical system with a conformal dome is designed for a field of regard of 20° (±10) and 30° (±15). Their MTF and Zernike coefficients graphics are compared. In this study, the optical system using a conformal dome is a refractive cooled MWIR objective that is designed such that the smallest number of lenses possible is used. The purpose of this is to achieve a more manufacturable design. Aerodynamic performance is improved with a conformal dome, and the main problem of the conformal dome, namely, reducing optical performance, is solved by using special freeform surfaces and moving them with respect to each other.