Panoramic annular lens design of endoscope

The previous design of a 360-degree side view (panoramic) endoscope uses many mirrors/lenses to capture side view and forward view simultaneously. This paper proposed a lower-complexity panorama image system at the endoscope. We propose a parabolic mirror as a reflector in the new endoscope for a 360-degree side view. The proposed scheme has less mirrors/lenses, thus less lens msialignment and image distortion problem, and therefore better reliability than the previous design.