Manufacturing of Visibly Transparent Large Conformal Windows

The challenging material requirements, large sizes, and complex geometries for current and future advanced military optical systems are creating numerous manufacturing challenges. These include the methods to fixture the components, advancements in grinding and polishing machines, processing techniques, and methods for measuring them to their demanding optical tolerances. Our goal in this SBIR effort would be to develop a manufacturing process to produce visibly transparent large conformal windows and corrector optical elements. We will build upon our past grinding and polishing knowledge while researching opportunities for improvements, including expansion of our current machine platforms so that in this Phase II effort demonstrate the capability to produce conformal shapes up to 24 inches in size. This development effort will focus on further enhancements of OptiPro’s ultrasonic grinding technology (OptiSonic), UltraForm Finishing (UFF), and UltraSmooth Finishing (USF). We will utilize OptiPro’s SXL500 and Triumph XL grinding and polishing platforms to perform this work. Our final goal would be to develop a complete, cost effective, robust manufacturing solution.