Optical System Design and Evaluation for an Augmented Reality Head-up Display Using Aberration and Parallax Analysis

We present a novel optical system for an augmented reality head-up display (AR HUD) with two virtual images at different conjugates by employing a confocal off-axis two-mirror and introducing the horopter circle. For a far virtual image with large asymmetrical aberrations, we initially obtain an off-axis two-mirror system corrected for these aberrations and compensated for the down angle by configuring its parameters to satisfy the confocal and Scheimpflug conditions, respectively. In addition, this system is designed to reduce the biocular parallax by matching Petzval surface into the longitudinal horopter circle in a near virtual image. This design approach enables us to easily balance the residual aberrations and biocular parallax when configuring the optical system with two different conjugates, which results in an AR HUD available for near and far virtual images together.