New automatic optical design method based on combination of particle swarm optimization and least squares

Damped least square method is one of the popular methods for automatic lens design. Various improvements in this automatic optical design are mainly due to the optimization of the damping factor and the weight factor. Especially in the four stages of lens design, designers pay more attention to the "correction" stage, and recognized the importance of human experience in "correction". The introduction of computer brought the feeling of indescribable about the balance aberration of computer. In fact, the function of computer has not gone beyond the range of balance aberration. In this paper, we discussed how to make the whole process of lens design completely automatic by computer, including the selection, correction and evaluation of the system. To achieve this process, the key step is how to make the computer think like a designer and select the type of lens. The success of lens design depends largely on the type selection. Designers who have a profound understanding of optical design theory and rich practical experience can select the simplest and most suitable one from a wide range of types, therefore, this method can also express a new global search method for optical design. Least squares is added to Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to optimize glass selection in optical system. After comparing and analysing the optimized design solutions, the system performance is well achieved. This method can be conveniently implemented and expands the solution space of the optical system.