US Patent 7354162 Projector

A projector includes: a light source device that emits substantially parallel illumination light; a first lens array having a plurality of first small lenses each of which divides the illumination light coming from the light source device into a plurality of partial light fluxes; a second lens array having a plurality of second small lenses corresponding to the first small lenses; a superposing optical system that superposes the partial light fluxes coming from the second lens array on regions to be illuminated; a color-separating and guiding optical system that separates the lights coming from the second lens array into lights in a plurality of different colors and guides the separated lights to the regions to be illuminated; a plurality of electro-optical modulation devices each of which modulates the light in the corresponding color of the lights in the plural colors separated by the color-separating and guiding optical system in accordance with image information; a color synthesizing optical system that synthesizes the lights in the respective colors modulated by the plural electro-optical modulation devices; and a projecting optical system that projects image light produced by the color synthesizing optical system. The superposing optical system has a first superposing lens disposed between the second lens array and the color-separating and guiding optical system and a second superposing lens having a convex lens included in the color-separating and guiding optical system.