Tinsley Laboratories has developed processes for fabricating ultra-precision aspheric optics used in space based and microlithography applications. The project objective is to significantly improve the fabrication process determinism, production throughput, and product cost by introducing knowledge-based expert decision making technology and through process automation. We propose to transfer technical capability in the areas of expert systems and automation from the University of California at Berkeley's Laboratory for Manufacturing Automation and to apply this to the aspheric manufacturing process. The expected Phase I results: 1) the design, implementation, and testing of a prototype knowledge-based expert system, 2) a plan for further implementation of the expert system in Phase II, 3) an initial design for automating key polishing process elements, and 4) an initial design for integrating the polishing process elements within the control of the expert system. The expected Phase II results: 1) completed implementation of the expert system, 2) automation of certain key process elements, 3) system demonstration in producing aspheric optics. 7. Potential Commercial Application(s) The most direct application of the improved aspheric surface manufacturing technlogy is to the fabrication of ultra-precise optics used in advanced semiconductor microlithography stepper systems. While our focus is on aspheric optics, the process improvements will also aid in fabricating ultra-precise spherical surfaces which characterize more than 90% of the optical elements in stepper system designs. Other applications will directly are flight simulation, and air and space-based remote sensing. These require high precision rather than ultra-precision optics, but the anticipated process improvements will result in better production visibility, higher throughput and lower cost in these areas as well. In addition, medium accuracy aspheric optics applications will benefit from increased availability and lower cost. Representative applications are flight control instrumentation (head up displays or helmet mounted displays), specialized inspection tools, medical instrumentation, and specialized film and video lens systems
