Hughes Aircraft Company

Delco Electronics Corporation

Raytheon Company

Delphi Technologies, Inc.

Hughes Electronics Corporation

Bell Sports, Inc.

Ning Wu

I-Fu Shih

Jerome Robert Laskowski

Aaron T Raines

Mark Anthony Koors

Gerald J Witt

Mark William Hudson

Timothy J Newman

Alexander L Kormos

Brent L Ellerbroek

Dale J Igram

Jianhua Li

Mark Robert Vincen

Ronald Kent Reger

Doyle Joseph Groves

Samuel G Williams

David E Schnelker

Eddie Gean Rothrock

Francine Harriet Landau

A vehicle ( ) has a camera ( ) generating infrared images of a scene ahead, and a display ( ) which reflects images from the vehicle windshield ( ). Images from the camera are displayed at night, and operational information about the vehicle is displayed during the day. The display includes a mirror ( ) with day and night reflective surfaces ( ) that have different optical characteristics and are arranged at an angle. The mirror is pivoted to transition the display unit between modes. In an alternative display ( ), radiation from the two-sided mirror travels directly to a driver, without reflection from a windshield.

Method and apparatus for displaying information with a head-up display

A head up display system having a diffusing image plane or diffuser. The light output of a relatively small image source is imaged on the diffuser by way of imaging optics. A mirror is used to image light from the diffuser onto a windshield and correct for distortion caused by the windshield. The diffuser is advantageously used when a large field-of-view is desired, or sun load characteristics need to be addressed. The diffuser may be flat or curved in order to optimize the system for different applications. The magnification of the mirror may be made relatively low, and the solar energy density that is made incident on the image source is reduced, providing for a low cost, high performance, color head up display system.

Head up display system using a diffusing image plane

A visual display and helmet assembly is configured to function in the presence of a harsh environment, e.g., high wind, vibration and shock and strong ambient light. The visual display preferably includes a transmissive liquid-crystal display to reduce the display's size and to enhance the intensity of a virtual image. In addition, the display is preferably reconfigurable so that different display indicia can be programmed as desired. To reduce probability of injury to a user, the visual display is carried on the exterior of the helmet with its center of mass positioned substantially on the midsagittal plane of the user. In addition, a mount permits the visual display to detach from the helmet when it is subjected to forces above a predetermined threshold. The mount is also permits yielding movement between the visual display and the helmet to enhance viewing of the image.

Visual display and helmet assembly

The image source of a head up display for a motor vehicle is illuminated from a remote high intensity source using fiber optics. The HUD image source and optics are under the dash pad of the vehicle and include color LCD or color filtered image source. The image is lighted by a high intensity light source which yields a bright projected image and which generates substantial heat. The light source includes lamps in a fan-cooled heat sink located in the vehicle engine compartment, for example, and coupled to the image source by fiber optic light guides. The light guides abut the image source to uniformly light small image patterns commensurate with the light guide size, or light spreading techniques are used for larger image patterns.

Fiber optic illumination of HUD image source

An improved method and apparatus for measuring the aberrated wave slope of an optical beam. The apparatus includes a shearing interferometer having a reference mirror 14 and a steerable mirror 16 mounted perpendicularly to one another with a beam splitter 10 disposed at a 45.degree. angle to each. The beam splitter 10 directs a portion of the incident beam to the reference mirror to form a reference beam 20 and transmits a portion 22 of the incident beam to the steerable mirror. The steerable mirror 16 is pivoted about two mutually perpendicular axes to form a shearing interference pattern at a detector array 24 when a portion of the incident beam is reflected off the steerable mirror 16 and combines with the reference beam 20 reflected off the reference mirror. The reference mirror 14 is periodically displaced to modulate the reference beam 20. In operation, the steerable mirror 16 is first oriented pivotally about a first axis perpendicular to the propagation axis of the incident beam to a pre-selected angle and the reference mirror is then periodically displaced. The variations in detector intensities are sampled and stored N times during this reference mirror displacement. The steerable mirror is then oriented at the same pre-selected angle about a second axes perpendicular to the first pivotal axis and the beam propagation axis and the reference mirror 14 again periodically displaced. The resulting detector intensity values can be manipulated to yield the phase of the initially distorted beam which can be converted into aberrated wave slope data.

Direct slope measurement shearing interferometer

A complex optical system may be maintained in alignment by means of a technique in which an analytical model of the system is utilized which is assumed to be capable of essentially optimal performance. A physical example of the same system design is then assembled and a plurality of performance characteristics are measured related to the intensity function associated with a point source image on the system's focal plane detector array. A plurality of specific adjustments are then calculated by means of a second order approximation technique which would have the effect of degrading the performance of the analytical model to equal that measured for the physical example, whereupon compensating physical adjustments are made to the physical example to improve its measured performance.

Method for aligning an optical system utilizing focal plane image

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Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, United States of America

Ning Wu