Projects

We are making breakthrough changes in the philosophy and design of telescopic sighting systems. Below is a partial list of our innovation projects pertaining to riflescopes and binoculars.

last update: September 2018

Project Eagle

Riflescopes and binoculars are based on the concept of the Keplerian telescope. A Keplerian telescope has an "exit pupil" which is located behind the eyepiece lens. The user's eye must be positioned at the the exit pupil in order to see the full field of view. For binoculars, the exit pupil is usually located 14 mm to 20 mm behind the eyepice. For rifle scopes, this distance is usually between 80 mm to 90 mm to prevent the rifle scope eyepiece hitting the shooters' head when the rifle is fired.

Project eagle

The existence of the exit pupil makes binoculars and riflescopes difficult to use. (Try giving a riflescope to a person who has never used them before. The person will naturally hold the scope in front of his/her eye but won't be able to see anything through it!) Project Eagle provides a radically new telescope concept wherein the exit pupil is located at the eyepiece lens and is virtually as large as the eyepiece diameter. This makes it very easy to see the field of view since there is no need for the eye to be positioned at a precise location behind the eyepiece.

In Project Eagle, a fiber optic face plate (FOFP) is used to create an intermediate projected image with diffuse illumination characteristics. The FOFP enlarges the exit pupil to the size of the eyepiece making eye-relief uncritical. In riflescopes, it also eliminates the error known as "parallax error".

Project Echo

In military operations, it is highly desirable to have both a red-dot sight and a telescopic sight available on the same weapon. This allows for both near and far shots to be taken quickly. However, mounting a red dot sight on top of a telescopic sights causes a problem with head position on the weapon. If the rifle's stock is configured to make the shooter's eye aligned with the axis of the telescopic sight, then the shooter must raise his head to use the red-dot sight. This will destroy his cheek weld and will adversely affect his or her marksmanship capability.

Echo Project provide an elegant solution to the above problem: A combination sight is designed comprising a riflescope and a red dot sight such that thy share a common eyepoint above the optical axis of the riflescope. This allows the shooter to engage near and far targets simply by changing his "gaze angle" without moving his head on the stock.

Project Echo uses a refractive wedge prism to tilt the viewing axis of the eyepiece upwards. The prism is positioned at the eyepiece focal point or after the last eyepiece lens depending on specific embodiment of this invention.

Project Juliette

In traditional riflescopes, the point of aim (POA) is adjusted mechanically using two knobs. These knobs move the reticle inside the riflescope in vertical and horizontal directions by a precise amount to adjust for elevation and windage.

Project Juliette uses a radically different approach: point of aim is adjusted optically using the principle of refraction of light by thin wedge prisms.

Project Oscar

Project Oscar is a variable magnification (zoom) riflescope wherein adjusting the magnification knob changes the distance in which the scope is zerod-in. At low magnification, the scope is zeroed-in for 100 m. As the magnification is increased, the scope will automatically move the zero distance further and further such that at maximum zoom it is zeroed-in for 400m.

This makes it very easy for the shooter to aim at targets at various distances. There is no need to hold over the target or adjust the elevation knob. As the shooter chooses the magnification to suite the distance he is going to shoot at, the scope automatically adjusts for bullet trajectory.

Milestones in Telescope Optics
1604	Kepler presents Astronomiae Pars Optica, setting the theoretical foundations for Classical Optics.
1608	The first telescopes (refractors) are made in Holland by Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Janssen, and Jacob Metius. Hans made the first Binoculars later that year.
1609	Galileo improves the telescope design by adding a positive (concave) eyepiece.
1611	Kepler improves on Galileo's design by using a negative (convex) eyepiece, providing greater eye-relief and a wider field of view. Kepler's design remains the basis for many modern scopes.
1621	Snell independently discovers the mathematical law of refraction, now known as Snell's law.
1637	Descartes publishes Dioptrique, mathematically describing the conic forms necessary for eliminating spherical aberration.
1665	Christiaan Huygens discovers Saturn's moon Titan, having built his own telescope (the Great Refractor) of 250 foot focal length! The first study of Diffraction (coined by Francesco Maria Grimaldi) supporting Huygens's wave-theory of light is published posthumously and goes largely unnoticed. Newton performs his famous Prism experiments from which he deduces that white light itself is composed of a spectrum of colours, and correctly distinguishes Chromatic and Spherical Aberrations. However, based on his corpuscular theory and experimental observations, he argues it would be impossible to eliminate Chromatic Aberration in Refractors.
1668	Isaac Newton makes the first successful Reflecting telescope, providing such an ingeniously simple and elegant solution for the front-view obstruction problem (placing a plane mirror at 45o) that it's hard to believe it had eluded his predecessors for over half a century! The Newtonian Reflector becomes the defacto standard in Astronomy, as scientists such as John Hadley and William Herschel continuously pushed its limits with increasing manufacturing ingenuity. Ironically, this came at the expense of advancing the Refractor, as Newton's theory of light rendered an explanation for chromatic aberration that was inadequate for understanding and thus further developing the Refracting telescope.
1758	John Dolland is awarded the patent for the first achromatic lens � what Newton�s theory of light had deemed impossible to create.
1803	Thomas Young presents his two-slit diffraction experiment to the Royal Society, showing that light has wave properties.
1817	Gauss invents the double-meniscus telescope objective � a significant addition to optical aberration correction technology. This idea still forms the basis of modern camera lens designs.
1821	Fresnel mathematizes Young�s wave theory of light, explaining Polarization, Interference, and Diffraction effects in general, overturning Sir Isaac Newton�s corpuscular theory of light.
1854	Ignazio Porro invents the modern Binocular design, using prisms.
1861	The American Civil War sees the invention of a Galilean telescopic sight which could be mounted on a rifle, thereby producing a new class of infantry �the �sharpshooters� � and launching an entirely new industry around riflescope design and manufacture.
1873	Ernst Abbe publishes the first mathematical treatment of aberration, diffraction and coma effects in the Carl Zeiss Compound Microscope, paving the way for Lens manufacturing to become a precision engineering process, as opposed to an exhaustive trial-and-error craft.
1935	Alexander Smakula, at Carl Zeiss, invents anti-reflective coating, leading to significant image quality improvements and what finally made compact Zoom lenses possible. This singular innovation and its subsequent refinement enabled the range of modern telescopic sight developments for cameras, binoculars, riflescopes, and the backyard astronomer�s telescope, to name but a few.
1964	Donald Buris and John Maulbetsch are awarded the patent for Variable Power Riflescope with Tilting Reticle and Erector Scope. The design and its variants represent the last major innovation in modern scopes, providing a mechanism for keeping a reticle centered on an image that can also be zoomed, and allows the operator to independently adjust for windage and elevation.