A hybrid artificial intelligence system for optical lens design

The current approach to optical lens design still relies very much on the lens designers' experience and knowledge. In the initial lens design, it is normally performed by lens designers and then is optimized by using some optimization techniques. This research aims to design and develop a computer-aided optical lens design system for automating the entire design process. In this paper, various approaches to optical lens design are briefly reviewed first. It is then followed by the descriptions of a hybrid artificial intelligence (AI) approach, based on the case based reasoning and genetic algorithm, to optical lens design. A prototype optical lens design system based on the hybrid approach was proposed and developed. The system not only could generate an initial and optimal optical lens design automatically but also demonstrate that the design could be done in lean knowledge paradigm.