Olympus Corporation

Olympus Medical Systems Corporation

Takehiko Iguchi

Shinya Kono

Sho Nakamura

Satoshi Makiyama

Takeshi Saito

Seiji Iwasaki

Masaru Inamura

Jun Shinzato

An optical unit includes a first barrel, a second barrel, a third barrel, and a position detection unit. Eight magnets including first and second magnets are fixed to the first barrel. A first and second coils are fixed to the second barrel. The position detection unit includes a magnetic sensor configured to detect magnetic fields generated by the first and second magnets and to generate a detection signal having a corresponding relation with a position of the first barrel. The third barrel includes a position defining surface parallel to a moving direction of the first barrel. The position detection unit is fixed to the position defining surface.

Optical unit

An endoscope apparatus has an endoscope and a video processor. The endoscope has a magnet and a coil, the magnet has a voice coil motor configured to be movable with respect to the coil and a Hall device disposed in the vicinity of the coil and configured to detect a magnetic field of the magnet in order to detect a position of the magnet. The video processor includes a position detection circuit configured to detect the position of the magnet from an outputted signal of the Hall device, an arithmetic operation section configured to correct a sensor output signal indicating the position of the magnet detected by the position detection circuit using correction information and output the sensor output signal, and a drive control circuit configured to control a current or a voltage to the coil based on an arithmetic operation result of the arithmetic operation section.

Endoscope apparatus

An optical unit includes a movable section that holds a movable lens group and includes a rotation restricting section, a fixed section that holds a fixed lens group and has specific permeability larger than 1.0, n thinned-down sections being provided in the fixed section, and a voice coil motor including an n magnet sections disposed at every (360/n)&#xb0; around a center axis of the movable section and a coil section disposed in the fixed section. The n magnet sections are respectively housed in n thinned-down sections in a noncontact manner. The n thinned-down sections are formed in asymmetrical positions different from every (360/n)&#xb0; around the center axis.

Optical unit and endoscope

An optical unit includes: a cylindrical fixing member configured to retain at least one of an object-side fixed lens group and an image-side fixed lens group; a cylindrical movable member configured to retain a movable lens group between the groups and arranged on a radial-direction inner side of the fixing member slidablly with respect to the fixing member, the cylindrical movable member having a same central axis as the cylindrical fixing member; a voice coil motor including: a coil arranged in the fixing member; and magnets arranged on the movable member and magnetically polarized in a direction intersecting with the central axis, the voice coil motor being capable of moving the movable member relative to the fixing member along a direction of the central axis; and a rotation restricting member configured to restrict rotation of the movable member about the central axis with respect to the fixing member.

An optical unit includes: a fixed portion configured to hold at least one of an object side fixed lens group and an image side fixed lens group; a movable portion configured to hold a movable lens group between the object side fixed lens group and the image side fixed lens group; and a voice coil motor configured to relatively move the movable portion with respect to the fixed portion in a direction of a central axis, the voice coil motor including a coil arranged on the fixed portion, and magnets magnetically polarized in directions orthogonal to the central axis and substantially symmetrical with respect to the central axis. At least two magnets adjacent to each other in a circumferential direction in a cross section orthogonal to the central axis are arranged so as to be shifted in opposite directions in a circumferential direction.

Driving unit, optical unit, imaging apparatus, and endoscope

The drive unit includes a tubular fixed part, a tubular movable part, and a voice coil motor. The tubular fixed part is with a given axis as center, a tubular movable partis located inside of the fixed part and having the axis as center, and a voice coil motor is capable of moving the movable part relatively with respect to the fixed part in the axial direction by a coil located in the fixed part and a magnet located in the movable part. In a state where the magnet is placed in the movable part, a first distance from the axis to the diametrically outer surface of the magnet is longer than a second distance from the axis to the inner circumference surface of the fixed part.

An optical unitincludes a voice coil motorwhich can relatively move a movable partwith respect to a fixed partin the axis C direction by using a coilarranged on the fixed partand a magnetarranged on the movable part, wherein the movable partincludes a movable-side sliding surface which can slide over an inner periphery of the fixed part, and a distance Lfrom a position closest to an object side to a position closest to an image side of the movable-side sliding surface in the axis C direction of the movable partis greater than a distance from an emission surface of the object-side fixed lens group Gf held by the fixed partto an incident surface of the image-side fixed lens group Gb held by the fixed part

The optical unit is including a tubular fixed part, a front frame part, a back frame part, a movable part, and a voice coil motor that is capable of moving the movable part relatively with respect to the fixed part in a direction of the axis by a coil located in the fixed part and a magnet located in the movable part and magnetically polarized in a direction orthogonal to the axis, wherein at least a part of the movable part is included in a portion of the front frame part projected in the axis direction.

An image pickup apparatus includes: a lens frame internally holding a movable lens, and including a magnet provided on an outer circumferential surface; a holding frame; and a magnetic member, in which the magnet includes a plurality of magnet pairs provided at uniform angles in a circumferential direction of the lens frame, each of the magnet pairs including magnets that are respectively disposed on distal end side and proximal end side along the optical axis direction of the movable lens, the magnet disposed on the distal end side has a polarity opposite in the radial direction to a polarity of the magnet disposed on the proximal end side, and the magnetic member is provided to face the magnets that configure one of the plurality of magnet pairs.

Image pickup apparatus with magnetically movable lens

An image pickup unit includes: a moving lens holding barrel that holds a moving lens constituting a part of an objective optical system and is disposed so as to freely advance and retract along a shooting optical axis O; a drive unit that generates a driving force for advancing and retracting the moving lens holding barrel along the shooting optical axis O in a fixed barrel; a flexible substrate disposed so as to urge the moving lens holding barrel in one direction orthogonal to the shooting optical axis O and bent so as to press a part of an outer surface of the moving lens holding barrel in the one direction to an inner surface of the fixed barrel; and a magnetism detecting portion detecting a relative position of the moving lens holding barrel from the fixed barrel according to magnetism of a position detecting magnet.

Image pickup unit and endoscope

The present invention provides an image pickup unit including an objective lens including a plurality of optical system members via which an object image is formed, the image pickup unit including: a fixed barrel that holds a fixed lens in the objective lens; a moving lens holding barrel that holds a moving lens and is disposed so as to be slidable along an optical axis inside the fixed barrel; and a voice coil motor section that generates a drive force for moving the moving lens holding barrel relative to the fixed barrel along the optical axis, and the voice coil motor section is disposed so that a center axis of action of a generated thrust force passes through a gravity center of a driven member to be driven by the voice coil motor section.

Growing community of inventors

Hino, Japan

Takehiko Iguchi