Ultra-wide field of view, broad spectral band helmet visor display optical system

A helmet visor optical display system, comprising:

• a helmet having a curved viewing visor with a viewing surface facing the helmet wearer,
• an image generator mounted on said helmet and oriented to project an image onto said viewing surface at a substantial bending angle to said surface, said bending angle producing binodal astigmatism with quadratic, linear and constant components, and coma with linear and constant components, in the image reflected from said viewing surface,
• a multi-lens rear optical lens relay group mounted on said helmet in an optical path between said image generator and said visor, and
• a multi-lens front optical lens relay group mounted on said helmet in said optical path between said rear relay group and said visor,
• said front relay group as a whole and said rear relay group as a whole being tilted and/or decentered relative to each other such that all of the lenses in said front relay group are misaligned with respect to all of the lenses in said rear relay group to substantially compensate for said binodal and linear astigmatism.

A method of removing asymmetric aberrations from a wide field of view optical display system which includes an image generator, a reflector having a reflective surface positioned to receive and reflect an image from said image generator, said reflector oriented at a substantial bending angle to said image generator so as to produce asymmetric aberrations in the reflected image, a multi-lens rear optical lens relay group positioned along an optical axis between said image generator and said reflector, and a multi-lens front optical lens relay group positioned along said optical axis between said rear relay group and said reflector, comprising:

• programming a computer with an optical design computer program,
• inputting characteristics of the lenses in said relay groups and of said reflective surface into said programmed computer,
• inputting instructions to said program to tilt and/or decenter all of the lenses in at least one of said relay groups as a whole relative to said axis,
• running said program to determine a desired tilt and/or decentering to substantially remove said asymmetric aberrations, and
• tilting and/or decentering at least one of said relay groups as a whole in accordance with said desired tilt and decentering.