Variation of Illumination Performance with Source Size and Tolerance Characteristics of Freeform LED Lenses

Abstract

Variation of Illumination Performance with Source Size and ToleranceCharacteristics of Freeform LED Lenses In this paper, the illumination performances of three freeform lenses optimally designed for a point source were investigated for several LEDs with different source sizes, and also the tolerance characteristics of the lenses were analyzed. For comparison, two lenses with different sizes were designed with a divergent illumination model, and the last one was done with an overlapped illumination model. As the LED source size increased, the illuminance uniformity decreased more strongly, and the influence of a source misalignment on illumination performance became insignificant. However, the variation of LED radiation characteristics had strong effect on the illumination performance, irrespective of LED source size. Even though the lens based on a divergent illumination model showed superior performance compared to the lens based on an overlapped illumination model, the latter was less sensitive to the variation of LED radiation characteristics.