Adaptive Optics; Principles, Performance and Challenges

Application of adaptive wavelets for laser beam distortion compensation for astronomical adaptive optics

“…For astronomical Adaptive Optics (4,5,6,7), one or more Laser Guide Stars (either Na LGS or Raleigh Lasers (5) ) are used to determine the 3-D structure ofdistortions in the atmosphere. Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO) (6) produces a reduction of stellar wavefront aberration close to the ground.…”

“…Adaptive Optics serves two very distinct communities: military facilities (which use the Laser Guide Stars for tracking satellites) and astronomical observatories which use Laser Guide Stars to correct atmospheric distortion in astronomical images (4,5,6,7). Both communities use Laser Guide Stars but the requirements for Wavefront Control for low earth orbit (military) versus astronomical observatories (4,5,6,7) are different: satellite tracking versus astronomy, in scale, in resolution, in complexity and size of facilities required.…”

“…Both communities use Laser Guide Stars but the requirements for Wavefront Control for low earth orbit (military) versus astronomical observatories (4,5,6,7) are different: satellite tracking versus astronomy, in scale, in resolution, in complexity and size of facilities required.…”

“…Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics (LTAO) is being developed to achieve 3-D structure of atmospheric turbulence. The Schack-Hartmann wavefront sensor is 2-D. Deformable Mirrors (DM) with PZT actuators are 3-D (4,16,17). The numerical bottleneck (4) is expected to be processing hundreds of channels of information.…”

Wavelet-based signal processing applied to deformable mirror PZT actuators for wavefront control

“…(4) is given by F = (HTWH)1HTWp. (9) The fitting process outlined above is optimal in the context of model (3). However, it is not very robust and ebould be modified if significant modeling errors are present.…”