Optical System Design for a Head-up Display Using Aberration Analysis of an Off-axis Two-mirror System

This study presents a new optical system for a combiner-type head-up display (HUD) with a cylindrical lens as an asymmetrical aberration corrector, instead of a freeform mirror. In the initial design process based on off-axial aberration analysis, we obtain an off-axis two-mirror system corrected for linear astigmatism and spherical aberration by adding a conic secondary mirror to an off-axis paraboloidal mirror. Thus, since the starting optical system for an HUD is corrected for dominant aberrations, it enables us to balance the residual asymmetrical aberrations with a simple optical surface such as a cylinder, not a complex freeform surface. From this design process, an optical system for an HUD having good performance is finally obtained. The size of the virtual image is 10 inches at 2 meters away from a combiner, and the area of the eye box is 130×50 mm2.