An ultrasonic piezoelectric motor includes a frame, a carrier, and a Z-direction piezoelectric driver. The carrier is disposed on an inner side of the frame and moveable in a Z direction relative to the frame, the carrier is configured to receive a camera lens, and the Z direction is parallel to an optical axis of the camera lens. A Z-direction piezoelectric driver is located between the frame and the carrier. The ultrasonic piezoelectric motor periodically abuts against the carrier using the Z-direction piezoelectric driver and drives the carrier to move in the Z direction to focus a camera module.

The embodiment relates to an actuator and a camera module including the same.

The actuator according to the embodiment includes a first circuit board on which an image sensor is disposed, a first housing disposed on the first circuit board, a lens assembly disposed within the first housing, and a second circuit board disposed on the first side portion of the first housing where a gyro sensor is disposed, and a third circuit board driving the lens assembly.

The third circuit board may include a first region disposed on the first side portion of the first housing and in which a first coil driving the lens assembly is disposed. The first coil may overlap the second circuit board in a direction perpendicular to an optical axis direction.

A folded optical system that comprises two prisms with refractive power and in which at least one surface of at least one of the prisms is not rotationally symmetric. The materials and surfaces of the prisms in the folded optical system may be selected to provide a low F-number (e.g., <=2.4), full field of view (FOV) of 30 degrees or less. The folded optical system may be implemented in a small package size while still capturing sharp, high-resolution images, making embodiments of a camera including the folded optical system suitable for use in small and/or mobile multipurpose devices.

Systems comprising a folded camera that includes a lens module with a native aperture, the lens module having a height H.sub.M, an adaptive aperture located between the native aperture and an optical path folding element, and an adaptive aperture forming mechanism for forming the adaptive aperture, wherein the adaptive aperture forming mechanism has a height H.sub.AA not larger than H.sub.M, and methods of using same. In various embodiments, the adaptive aperture forming mechanism includes an actuator and at least one pair of blades operative to be moved by the actuator to a plurality of positions to form the adaptive aperture.

One embodiment provides an imaging device, including: a sparsely-filled optical aperture having a shape forming an outer portion of the optical aperture, wherein at least a portion of an inner portion formed by the outer portion of the optical aperture is not a part of the optical aperture; and imaging optics, wherein the imaging optics include at least one reflection device optically located after the optical aperture and at least one imaging sensor optically located after the at least one reflection device, wherein light entering the optical aperture reflects from the at least one reflection device onto the at least one imaging sensor. Other embodiments are described herein.

A camera module includes a plastic carrier, an imaging lens assembly, a reflective element and a plurality of auto-focusing elements. The plastic carrier includes an inner portion and an outer portion, wherein an inner space is defined by the inner portion, and the outer portion includes at least one mounting structure. The imaging lens assembly is disposed in the inner space of the plastic carrier. The reflective element is for folding an image light by a reflective surface of the reflective element into the imaging lens assembly. The auto-focusing elements include at least two magnets and at least one wiring element, wherein the auto-focusing elements are for moving the plastic carrier along a second optical axis of the imaging lens assembly, and the magnets or the wiring element can be disposed on the mounting structure of the outer portion.

An optical prism that includes an interlock structure that precisely couples to a complementary structure of a refractive lens. For precision, the interlock structure may be formed at the same time and using the same technique as the optical surface of the prism. The interlock structure provides high accuracy when assembling a folded lens system by precisely aligning the object side optical surface of the lens with the image side optical surface of the prism so that the optical axis is centered in the lens. The prism may have refractive power. A portion of the object side surface may be coated with an opaque material to provide an aperture stop at that surface.

SMA actuators and related methods are described. One embodiment of an actuator includes a base; a plurality of buckle arms; and at least a first shape memory alloy wire coupled with a pair of buckle arms of the plurality of buckle arms. Another embodiment of an actuator includes a base and at least one bimorph actuator including a shape memory alloy material. The bimorph actuator attached to the base.

A stereo imaging system having convergence angle and disparity control includes a pair of pivoting folded-parallel-light-channel (FPLC) units arranged to provide a virtual left side view and a virtual right side view of a scene. Each FPLC unit includes a fixed lens unit adapted to focus reflected light including an image of a scene to an image sensor and a laterally translatable light-redirecting unit including a reflector adapted to define a parallel image reflection path to the fixed lens unit via a collimated light beam defined by substantially parallel light beams. The stereo imaging system further includes a disparity-adjusting mechanism adapted to alter a distance between the pair of pivoting FPLC units and a convergence-angle-adjusting mechanism adapted to pivot the pivoting FPLC units.

An optical system according to the present disclosure includes a first sub-optical system including an aperture stop and a second sub-optical system including a prism. The prism has a first transmission surface located on the reduction side, a second transmission surface located on the magnification side, and at least one reflection surface located on the optical path between the first transmission surface and the second transmission surface. A first reflection surface closest to the intermediate imaging position has a shape with a concave surface facing a direction into which a light ray incident on first the reflection surface is reflected. A curvature shape of the first reflection surface is set such that some of multiple principal rays passing through the reduction conjugate point intersect on the optical path between the first reflection surface and the second transmission surface.