Lens-descriptor guided evolutionary algorithm for optimization of complex optical systems with glass choice
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866915761342119936 |
|---|---|
| author | Antonov, Kirill Tukker, Teus Botari, Tiago Bäck, Thomas H. W. Kononova, Anna V. van Stein, Niki |
| author_facet | Antonov, Kirill Tukker, Teus Botari, Tiago Bäck, Thomas H. W. Kononova, Anna V. van Stein, Niki |
| contents | Designing high-performance optical lenses entails exploring a high-dimensional, tightly constrained space of surface curvatures, glass choices, element thicknesses, and spacings. In practice, standard optimizers (e.g., gradient-based local search and evolutionary strategies) often converge to a single local optimum, overlooking many comparably good alternatives that matter for downstream engineering decisions. We propose the Lens Descriptor-Guided Evolutionary Algorithm (LDG-EA), a two-stage framework for multimodal lens optimization. LDG-EA first partitions the design space into behavior descriptors defined by curvature-sign patterns and material indices, then learns a probabilistic model over descriptors to allocate evaluations toward promising regions. Within each descriptor, LDG-EA applies the Hill-Valley Evolutionary Algorithm with covariance-matrix self-adaptation to recover multiple distinct local minima, optionally followed by gradient-based refinement. On a 24-variable (18 continuous and 6 integer), six-element Double-Gauss topology, LDG-EA generates on average around 14500 candidate minima spanning 636 unique descriptors, an order of magnitude more than a CMA-ES baseline, while keeping wall-clock time at one hour scale. Although the best LDG-EA design is slightly worse than a fine-tuned reference lens, it remains in the same performance range. Overall, the proposed LDG-EA produces a diverse set of solutions while maintaining competitive quality within practical computational budgets and wall-clock time. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_22075 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Lens-descriptor guided evolutionary algorithm for optimization of complex optical systems with glass choice Antonov, Kirill Tukker, Teus Botari, Tiago Bäck, Thomas H. W. Kononova, Anna V. van Stein, Niki Neural and Evolutionary Computing Designing high-performance optical lenses entails exploring a high-dimensional, tightly constrained space of surface curvatures, glass choices, element thicknesses, and spacings. In practice, standard optimizers (e.g., gradient-based local search and evolutionary strategies) often converge to a single local optimum, overlooking many comparably good alternatives that matter for downstream engineering decisions. We propose the Lens Descriptor-Guided Evolutionary Algorithm (LDG-EA), a two-stage framework for multimodal lens optimization. LDG-EA first partitions the design space into behavior descriptors defined by curvature-sign patterns and material indices, then learns a probabilistic model over descriptors to allocate evaluations toward promising regions. Within each descriptor, LDG-EA applies the Hill-Valley Evolutionary Algorithm with covariance-matrix self-adaptation to recover multiple distinct local minima, optionally followed by gradient-based refinement. On a 24-variable (18 continuous and 6 integer), six-element Double-Gauss topology, LDG-EA generates on average around 14500 candidate minima spanning 636 unique descriptors, an order of magnitude more than a CMA-ES baseline, while keeping wall-clock time at one hour scale. Although the best LDG-EA design is slightly worse than a fine-tuned reference lens, it remains in the same performance range. Overall, the proposed LDG-EA produces a diverse set of solutions while maintaining competitive quality within practical computational budgets and wall-clock time. |
| title | Lens-descriptor guided evolutionary algorithm for optimization of complex optical systems with glass choice |
| topic | Neural and Evolutionary Computing |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22075 |