Cost-Conscious Tolerancing of Optical Systems

Level: Intermediate Length: 7 hours Format: In-Person Lecture Intended Audience: This material is intended for optical engineers and others with a familiarity of optical design and performance. Description: Presented in this course are concepts and methods to help attendees determine optimal tolerances for optical systems, regardless of product volume. Beginning with a review of the role of the systems engineer in the verification and allocation of requirements, a 10-step plan for creating error budgets is introduced. These budgets provide the basis for developing tolerances for design, optical and mechanical fabrication, assembly, operation, compensation, and calibration as needed. The importance of iteratively tolerancing throughout the design and development process is discussed in detail. Two optical system examples are featured, and tolerancing is demonstrated for focal length, wavefront error and MTF, and geolocation. These exercises are intended to help those in systems engineering, optical design, fabrication, and metrology work together to build high-quality cost-competitive optical systems. Learning Outcomes: This course will enable you to: - use simulated and actual data to refine predictions and address issues - explain six practices used to generate tolerances that can be met with minimal cost - apply statistical methods to combine and evaluate proposed tolerances - predict the interdisciplinary communications that will be required to manage errors - list the advantages of building and maintaining an error budget - construct a top-level error budget for an imaging system using 2-3 different organizations - create the sensitivities needed to convert between errors and tolerances Instructor(s): Jennifer LeBaron Michels is a 1988 UR Institute of Optics graduate and owner of Redhead Optical, Inc. Jennifer specializes in systems engineering, optical system modeling, and manufacturing metrology. She has worked with Eastman Kodak, IMAX, Optimax, and Optipro Systems. She has taught Instrumental Optics, Photo Science, and Statistics at the State University of New York. Jennifer is an ISO subject matter expert and Education Committee member on the OEOSC. Event: SPIE Photonics West 2025 Course Held: 26 January 2025