Long-Range, High-Resolution Camera Optical Design for Assisted and Autonomous Driving

High-quality cameras are fundamental sensors in assisted and autonomous driving. In particular, long-range forward-facing cameras can provide vital information about the road ahead, including detection and recognition of objects and early hazard warning. These automotive cameras should provide high-resolution images consistently under extreme operating conditions of the car for robust operation. This paper aims to introduce the design of fixed-focus, passively athermalized lenses for next-generation automotive cameras. After introducing an overview of essential and desirable features of automotive cameras and state-of-the-art, based on these features, two different camera designs that can achieve traffic sign recognition at 200 m distance are presented. These lenses are designed from scratch, with a unique design approach that starts with a graphical lens material selection tool and arrives at an optimized design with optical design software. Optical system analyses are performed to evaluate the lens designs. The lenses are shown to accomplish high contrast from − 40 °C to 100 °C and allow for a 4 × increase in resolution of automotive cameras.