Spanish advanced optical design services company working with virtual and augmented reality, camera optics, high-end or automotive lighting, offers license, outsourcing or subcontracting agreements

Most asymmetrical optical design problems are addressed these days by means of conventional rotationally-symmetric optics, which offer optimal solutions, both in terms of performance and size. This is very evident in virtual reality, where current headsets are bulky, hard to wear for a long time, and furthermore offer a poor angular resolution. Instead, free-form optics perfectly fit with free-form performances or wild geometrical restrictions, which are becoming commonplace as technology evolves towards sleeker, more attractive compact devices. The team of the Spanish SME has a >25 years track record of free-form optics design in fields such as solid-state lighting, solar energy, projection optics and VR/AR, where they have invented, designed, developed and helped their customers bringing to market a number of commercial products, including an all-LED based headlamp with a major Japanese automotive brand and a VR/AR headset whose size is half of the state of the art devices. Their advanced design services are often hired by technological companies with a strong activity in R&D, willing to take their products to the next levels by providing them with an added value through a more efficient, sophisticated optical system, without losing the advantages of being able to produce it in mass at low cost. Their custom design agreements start with an NDA, followed by technical conversations and the stages of actual design and prototyping (if needed). Eventually, if the design is linked to their background IP, the SME signs an exploitation agreement, normally royalty-bearing. However, they also offer custom designs based on public-domain technologies and are open to negotiating with customers fair exploitation of foreground IP in case the work for hired yields new inventions. The optical systems of this offer are designed with proprietary tools and include free-form surfaces, multi-channels (like the eyes of insects) and light folding strategies (combining lenses, total internal reflection and mirrors in monolithic lens parts). The combination of these characteristics allows for more geometrical and performance degrees of freedom, and a more powerful light bending, which makes the lenses more likely to comply with tight geometrical restrictions, for a given target performance. The company is looking to establish license, outsourcing or subcontracting agreements with either small start-ups or big brands, in fields such as VR/AR, consumer electronics and automotive.