Industry Applications
Aerospace/Military
Whether you're talking about next-generation weapons systems that forego bullets for beams of light, remote sensing instruments that tell tanks from jungle foliage, or detection systems that can sniff out chemical and biological weapons in our cities and on the battlefield, optics is an integral part of the conversation. Virtually all aspects of the defense industry depend on optics. Right now, researchers are working on devices that will increase our military's response capability and accuracy, safeguard our troops, and provide first alert of homeland security threats. Many of these devices will use optics as an enabling technology.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
ASAP® remains the optical engineer's first choice for simulating the physics of optical systems, especially in the areas of aerospace engineering and military/defense. BRO's customers include the nation's leading defense companies and government-run laboratories.
Breault Research Organization (BRO) was founded on a job for the defense industry, when Dr. Robert Breault used his optical software program to complete a stray light analysis study on the soon-to-be Hubble Space Telescope. That analysis increased Hubble's ability to "see" by a factor of 100,000. BRO's software products have been helping engineers manage light ever since.
ASAP has been a key part of the following projects: Infrared Space Observator (ISO), Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), X-ray Mirror Module (XMM), and Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). Engineers use ASAP to design and analyze night vision systems, missile guidance systems, interferometers, telescopes, and space imaging systems. They count on the accuracy and detail that ASAP simulations provide to ensure peak performance in products for the most important applications.
Automotive
BRO's suite of illumination software products remains integral in the design of cutting-edge automotive illumination systems. Engineers armed with BRO's software applications are able to design more aesthetic, better-performing automotive illumination systems, and in record time.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
BRO's software products for the automotive industry include the ASAP optical engineering software package, the Exterior Lighting Test Module (ELTM), and ReflectorCAD® Reflector Design Software, as well as an extensive library of source models for use with these applications.
Whether you are designing automotive lightpipes, fiber-optic lighting systems, segmented reflector headlamps powered by incandescent or HID arc sources, taillights utilizing light-emitting diodes (LEDs), fog lighting, or interior auxiliary lights, there is no better tool for your automotive illumination job. The high accuracy of BRO's simulation tools ensures that your optical system will behave as predicted, avoiding costly redesigns and experimental prototyping.
Bio-optics
Optics is the key enabling technology behind biotech advances such as clinical diagnostics, drug discovery, and cancer treatment, to name a few. Light lets researchers interact with and analyze biomolecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins. PCR machines (which copy DNA), DNA sequencers, gel imagers, labeling dyes, microarrays, and many of the major tools used in molecular biology labs have optics inside. Without the lasers, optical imaging systems, and detectors designed specifically for DNA sequencing machines, the Human Genome Project would never have begun. The field of genomics, as we know it, wouldn't exist. Now, more than ever, the biotechnology industry is reliant on optics as an enabling technology.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
ASAP has been developed to simulate real-world performance by taking into account the physics of optical systems, which makes the software ideal for the design and simulation of bio-optics and biophotonic systems. ASAP can simulate entire biophotonic systems, including devices for drug discovery systems, molecular biology research, clinical diagnostics, and surgical applications.
Consumer Electronics
Computers, cellular phones, car-entry systems, personal data assistants (PDAs), household appliances and scores of other electronics products depend on optics, not just for the semiconductor manufacturing processes used to make electronic circuit boards, but for the man-machine interfaces (displays) that make the devices interactive, and for the integrated gadgetry that makes the devices smarter. Take the next-generation cellular phone: possibly a phone, optical fingerprint sensor, and text-messaging device with a keyboard, all in a tiny package with a full-color display as the interface.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
From optimizing LED lighting for toys and computers, to designing lightpipes for scanners, ASAP is ready to for the optical challenges of consumer electronics products. Luminaires, optical imaging systems, lightpipes, flat-panel displays, backlit displays — you name the optical challenge, ASAP is the optical software solution for the consumer electronics industry.
Display
PCs and TVs have been joined by a battery of electronic gadgets all requiring increasingly sophisticated display systems. Microprocessors — the "brains" behind the PC — have found their way into our cars, phones, stereos, garage-door openers, and a host of other places in our homes. The explosion of the Internet is leading the way to a mobile, connected world, where hand-held devices and smart appliances of all sorts make for one big, seamless network. The man-machine interface for these devices is always a display system. New technologies promising brighter, smaller, cheaper, more efficient, and more reliable displays abound. This is one of the optics industry's fastest growing sectors.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
ASAP is tailor-made to design, analyze, and improve the performance of displays. From flat-panel displays such as Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) and plasma displays, projection systems based on micro-displays including Digital Light Projectors (DLPs) and mini-LCDs, and heads-up displays, ASAP is capable in all aspects of display engineering. ASAP simulates advanced light sources such as HID arc source and Organic Light-emitting Diodes (OLEDs), allowing engineers to develop efficient display screens with minimal light leakage, and optimize transfer optics to make them as efficient as possible, thereby addressing battery longevity, heat issues, and space limitations.
Optical Metrology
Optical metrology refers to optical systems or procedures developed to test the parameters or performance of optical components or systems. New measurement devices and techniques are constantly under development to keep pace with advances in optical devices.
The Most Advanced Optical Software
ASAP is an ideal tool both to design and analyze metrology devices as well as to quantify the effects of measured defects. Almost any type of system used for metrology can be designed in ASAP, including advanced devices based on interferometric, holographic, or tomographic techniques. ASAP also includes tolerancing capabilities which can be used to define sensitivity limits on design parameters.
Telecommunications
ASAP is the software behind the latest innovations in telecommunication component design. If your job involves analysis and control of polarization effects, fiber-coupling efficiencies, wavelength division multiplexing, diffractive and interference effects, you need this tool in your kit.
Geometrical Ray Tracing and Radiometry
The fast, non-sequential ray-tracing engine in ASAP makes it possible to trace tens of millions of rays through physically accurate system models. ASAP is the fastest non-sequential ray-tracing program available and it doesn't cut corners. Other programs approximate surface shapes to gain ray tracing speed but trade accuracy. With ASAP, you get the right answer fast.
Wave Optics Propagation Through Systems of Lenses, Mirrors, and Mechanical Components
ASAP uses Gaussian beam decomposition, which allows accurate modeling of optical aberrations, polarization, diffraction, and interference. This method is great for bulk optics.
Coupling to and from Fibers
ASAP can compute the overlap of the incident light field with the mode supported by the fiber, allowing you to determine coupling efficiency and appropriate manufacturing tolerances for your system.
Beam Propagation
Our unique finite-difference beam propagation method (BPM) lets you propagate fields through and within, waveguides, fibers, and integrated micro-optics. Now you can model fibers, evanescent couplers, and Y branches — propagate fields from macroscopic structures into and through these and other microscopic systems.
Pricing and Platform Information
Please use the ASAP Web Quote Form to help us understand your optical software needs. Our Technical Sales Team will respond promptly.
