Adaptive Optical Zoom Rifle Scope With Push-Button Magnification

Sandia National Laboratories optical engineer Brett Bagwell led the development of the Rapid Adaptive Zoom for Assault Rifles (RAZAR) prototype. At the push of a button, RAZAR can toggle between high and low magnifications, enabling soldiers to zoom in without having to remove their eyes from their targets or their hands from their rifles. Adaptive zoom changes the focal lengths of two or more lenses by varying the curvature of the lenses' surfaces to provide optical zoom without changing their overall positions relative to one another - allowing the user to view either a wide-angle image or zoom in on an area of interest with a compact, low-power system. A piezoelectric actuator electro-mechanically changes the flex of the lenses, achieving the correct position within 250 milliseconds to an accuracy of 100 nanometers, about 1/100th the thickness of a human hair. These actuators operate the way the muscles of the human eye change the curvature of the eye's lens to focus far away or up close. In addition to military riflescopes, RAZAR technologies could be used for applications including include medical imaging, binoculars, hunters' scopes, and cell phone cameras where optical zoom is needed to avoid the pixelated images associated with digital zoom.

Transcript

00:00:01 the Optics used in rifle scopes haven't changed in over a 100 years so US Special Forces requested a compact Zoom rifle scope capable of rapidly toggling between magnifications at the push of a button without moving your hands from the rifle or your eye from the Target in response the engineers at Sandia National Laboratories designed razor rapid adaptive Zoom for assault

00:00:29 rifles traditional rifle scopes Zoom rifle scopes magnify the scene to varying degrees uh by moving lenses axially uh relative to one another so the rifle scope that we developed in response to the need that that we saw was based on the concept that rather than moving the lenses relative to one another let's change the focal length of those lenses adaptive

00:00:57 Zoom is a revolutionary method of ACC accomplishing true optical zoom by varying the focal lengths of the optical elements the muscles around the human eye change the shape of the lens to change the focal length from far to near Razer uses polymer in a similar fashion this is a simulation of the deflection of the polymer membrane under actuation by being able to change the radius of

00:01:22 curvature of these lenses with a small actuation displacement of this plunger we're able to realize a fairly large change in the radius of curvature or the focal length of the lens that allows us to create a uh rifle scope system with uh a dynamic Zoom this is a leap ahead technology this liquid lens technology allows us to do is to take something that could be as as big as our current

00:01:47 Optics and increase the performance you know five tenfold uh the fact that this leap ahead technology was done on a shoest string budget as a testament to Dr Bagwell and his dedicated team of Engineers at Sandia National Labs um truly a Monumental achievement the Adaptive uh Zoom rifle scope that we we eventually wound up building um resulted in a relatively um

00:02:15 short form factor uh but the real benefit of the of the push button Zoom rifle scope was just that push button Zoom um we the system that we eventually tested with um US Army Special Forces allowed them to at instantaneously and by that I mean a tenth or 2/10 of a second push a button change their their field of view um either wide field of view that allowed

00:02:46 them to be situationally aware um or narrow field of view High magnification for Target engagement I was able to actually be on the weapon system and looking at a a a near Target 25 M away and engage it with multiple shots and then instantly zoom in on a Target that was 100 met away and engage it within seconds versus having to go up and and

00:03:16 on that one power and if I needed to magnify take my hand off the weapon um zoom in and then engage it the the the difference you know that can make especially when somebody's shooting back could make life or death so it's it's gamechanging in that in that capacity the direct view technology developed by Sandia provides a large clear aperture and the required Optical quality the

00:03:43 mechanical movement needed to change the focal length requires very little power the razor can perform 10,000 actuations on two AA batteries it's very fast and the optic continues to function even when there aren't batteries so you can continue you um should you lose power you still have a rifle scope unlike a camera based system and this technology is ideal for any Imaging system that

00:04:10 requires extremely fast variable magnification but is limited by size weight and power constraints we're currently developing lenses in the near infrared shortwave infrared and midwave infrared um again primarily for DOD purposes right now but um uh the commercial applications of this technology anywhere where you want to uh zoom in on a on uh an object for an

00:04:40 Imaging application be it a a camera based system uh for security purposes cctvs night vision equipment for commercial use binoculars or spotting scopes for um hunting or bird watching anywhere that that you want to zoom uh the technology has the potential to be [Music] applicable