Design & Engineering
Illumination Design & Engineering:
SMA has significant experience in the field of illumination and illumination system design. Systems incorporating high-intensity discharge (short-arc) lamps, long-arc lamps, spectral mixtures of LEDs, and standard tungsten halogen lamps have been modeled, designed, and built. These systems have consistently performed in accordance with the predictions derived in modeling. We have developed proprietary techniques to integrate imaging and illumination systems, often enabling us to accurately assess combined performance prior even to prototyping.
Illumination design is one of the toughest challenges in the field of optical engineering. The robust optimization routines that provide the imaging lens designer with controls over a large range of optical parameters in a merit function are more limited for the illumination engineer. While the ability to build a useful merit function has improved over the past decade, much more of the task still depends on the experience and intuition of the designer.
SMA employs state-of-the-art software tools to accurately model systems under development. Our illumination systems are designed by experienced professionals using sophisticated computing platforms with many parallel processors in order to speed the computation of the millions of rays required by every optimization cycle.
Opto-Mechanical Design:
SMA provides experienced design of precision opto-mechanical assemblies. It begins with sensitivity and tolerance analysis of our optical designs, progresses to Monte Carlo modeling of the anticipated production performance range, and then to the corresponding design of mechanical systems that ensure the positioning of the optical components in a manner consistent with the tolerances required. SMA recognizes that the assembly and alignment process cannot proceed successfully unless that process is considered during the mechanical design.
Our designs have included the stable and precise positioning of systems with over 50 optical surfaces, as well as multiple optical folds in bizarre directions.
Our expertise is best demonstrated by seamless integration of imaging systems with matched illumination systems that are carefully positioned to maximize the performance. Our digital projection engines and machine vision systems are excellent examples of these capabilities
Development Experience
Whether you are in need of ultra low-light imaging, critical illumination, diffraction-limited imaging systems, LED implementation, or breakthrough acoustic imaging systems, you’ll find our capabilities up to the challenge.
Design & Engineering
Project Examples
Digital Imaging and Projection
Wide Angle Imaging
Fiber Optic Illumination
LED Illumination
Fluorescence Detection
Architectural Lighting
Road Sign Lighting