A rigorous electro-optical simulation and ray tracing for an electric field driven liquid crystal Fresnel lens was proposed to obtain design parameters of the electrode pattern of the Fresnel lens. The optimal design was carried out using Taguchi`s experimental method for 17.1"(368×229.5 mm) wide LCD panels with 9 views. For the calculation of the distribution of liquid crystal molecules and the optical transmission of the panel, finite difference method and extended Jones matrix method were used to deal effectively with highly nonlinear and complicated motional equations of the liquid crystal molecules and to obtain the oblique transmission characteristics of the LCD panel. As simulation results, the optimal lengths of the 3 electrodes of the Fresnel lens are 4.0 μm, 30 μm and 83 μm, respectively, and the locations of the second and third electrodes are 32.9-33.0 μm and 45.9-46.0 μm, respectively. The optimal applied voltage of the 3 electrodes are found to be 5.75 V, 7.80 V and 11.9 V, respectively.
