Partnering for Performance
We work side-by-side with our clients to solve their toughest problems.
These case studies show how collaboration and innovation come together to produce measurable outcomes.
Meeting Specs for Navigational Lighting
Our client had taken on a contract to produce a new type of navigational lighting for marine applications. Initial testing of their design indicated that it did not satisfy US Coast Guard brightness and angular visibility requirements. Optikos engineers worked with the client to identify comprehensive and complete product requirements and reviewed the existing design to fully understand its shortcomings. Optikos developed a design utilizing custom conical surfaces that could be readily fabricated and implemented into the luminaire, and provided a comprehensive evaluation of the distribution pattern of the luminaire to confirm compliance with US Coast Guard specifications. The product was then put into production. Have a project in mind? Get started here.
A New ViewMaster® Meets Cost and Quality Goals
When Fisher-Price procured the legendary ViewMaster® product line, they wanted to bring additional play value to the product. The challenge was to rejuvenate an optically-based consumer product for the toy market while providing excellent viewing quality and meeting aggressive cost-performance targets. Optikos developed, patented, and licensed to Fisher-Price a new type of viewer that combined a binocular optics with a ViewMaster® image disc. Since the ViewMaster® slides were viewed by reflection off a mirror; new discs were required to achieve proper stereo imaging. The aggressive product cost targets were achieved by using plastic optical components, an off-shore manufacturing solution. Along with a tie-in with the Discovery Channel, the Fisher-Price Discovery Viewer reinvigorated the ViewMaster® product line bringing a true...
Single-use Digital Imaging for Colonoscopy
Boston Scientific wanted to develop a single-use digital imaging system that would be cost competitive with conventional colonoscopy imaging. In the late 1990’s, they approached Optikos to design the entire electro-optical imaging chain for this type of product. Optikos recognized that the decreasing cost of high brightness LEDs, CMOS imagers, and plastic optical components would soon allow the type of extremely low-cost and high-quality digital imaging systems that this product would require. Through the development and prototype stage, we worked closely with our client and designed a patented CMOS imaging system with image quality comparable to conventional imaging systems that could be manufactured at a price point previously never thought possible. Optikos was responsible for the lens design, the digital...
Production Testing of Guidance Systems
Our defense client is a high volume manufacturer of defense electro-optical systems and wanted to develop a flexible test station that would provide an automated capability to test a variety of guidance systems with a broad range of performance requirements and a very unique physical configuration. Optikos designed, developed, and delivered an advanced, large scale, remotely operated production guidance system testing platform. The system included multiple load stations for high production throughput, a calibrated variable laser light source with over 9 decades of signal attenuation, and a high quality all-reflective collimator with signal and polarization uniformity of less than 10% throughout its 8″ test aperture. Using this test platform, the customer was able to achieve full-scale and automated testing of...
Lens Redesign and Alignment to Meet Specs
Our client brought a prototype anamorphic lens to our facility that did not satisfy its MTF specification. They had been to numerous optical facilities across the country and had been unable to improve its performance. Optikos reviewed the system requirements and the details of the optical and mechanical designs. The lens was then placed on an optical bench to allow for visual inspection of the imagery across the field. By noting subtle details relating to the size and symmetry of the star images across the field, and relating those asymmetries to the design and potential mechanical misalignments of the toroidal and cylindrical surfaces in the system, Optikos engineers iteratively shimmed the design into alignment, brought its performance into specification...
