Current market trend indicates an increased interest in replacing mirrors by camera monitor systems (CMS) to reduce CO2 emissions and to improve visibility of surrounding environment to the driver. A CMS is an advanced system composed of an electronic imager, a display, and an intelligent electronic control unit intended to provide at least the same level of functionality of legally prescribed mirrors. A CMS must also take into consideration several factors in the designed system to satisfy an overall system magnification and system resolution. Some factors pertain to the camera, and display inside the cockpit, but some other are related to the physical constraints of the human operator, i.e. visual acuity, height, etc.
In this paper, we demonstrate that there exists a fundamental nonlinear equation for a given CMS encompassing factors that influence the performance of the system. Moreover, we show that it is possible to design an optimal CMS by using optimization algorithms on the fundamental equation. We also demonstrate that a CMS system can be designed from camera data requirements to display parameters or similarly from display data requirements to camera parameters. Additionally, we also show a design based on camera-display data to system parameters. Finally, we highlight that maximizing one of the three approaches will subsequently maximize the other two.