Patent ID: 7505205

Claim:
An illumination system comprising at least two light sources emitting noncollinear and noncollimated light beams, an optical component for combining and integrating said beams, which is placed in the path of said beams, comprising, from the upstream end of said paths to the downstream end: upstream, at least one prism bounded by at least first and second entrance faces that form a dihedron, at least one of the entrance faces receiving one of said beams, which penetrates the prism and is then at least partly reflected by internal reflection on another of said entrance faces; and downstream, a light integrator comprising a cylindrical rod made of transparent material, which receives at one end, called the entrance end, said beams reflected by at least one prism, the length of the rod being such that the light of said beams is reflected several times on the inside walls ( 30 . 1 ) of said rod so as to deliver at the other end, called the exit end, an almost uniform illumination beam, wherein each beam from all of the sources penetrates each prism.