USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Other

Scott W Teare

Sergio R Restaino

Ty Martinez

Christopher C Wilcox

Jonathan R Andrews

An atmospheric aberration sensor that uses two optically correlated images of a scene and the Fourier transform capabilities of a lens or other focusing element. The sensor receives light via an f-number matching element from a scene or from an external optical system and transmits it through a focusing optical element to an updateable display element such as a spatial light modulator or micro mirror array, which modulates the real time image from the focusing element with previous template image of the same extended scene. The modulated image is focused onto an autocorrelation detection sensor, which detects a change in centroid position corresponding to a change of the tip/tilt in the optical path. This peak shift is detected by centroid detection and corresponds to the magnitude of global wavefront tip/tilt. With a lenslet array and detector array, the system can also measure local tip/tilt and higher order aberrations.

Extended source wavefront sensor through optical correlation with a change in centroid position of light corresponding to a magnitude of tip/tilt aberration of optical jitter

A system and method for simulating atmospheric turbulence for testing optical components. A time varying phase screen representing atmospheric turbulence is generated using Karhunen-Loeve polynomials and a splining technique for generating temporal functions of the noise factor for each Zernike mode. The phase screen is input to a liquid crystal spatial light modulator. A computer display allows the user to set geometric characteristics, the severity of the turbulence to be simulated, and to select between methods for generating atmospheric turbulence including Karhunen-Loeve polynomials, Zernike polynomials, and Frozen Seeing.

Adaptive optical system testbed with karhunen-loeve polynomial based method for simulating atmospheric turbulence

A system and method for simulating atmospheric turbulence for testing optical components. A time varying phase screen representing atmospheric turbulence is generated using Karhunen-Loeve polynomials and a splining technique for generating temporal functions of the noise factor for each Zernike mode. The phase screen is input to a liquid crystal spatial light modulator. A computer display allows the user to set geometric characteristics, and select between methods for generating atmospheric turbulence including Karhunen-Loeve polynomials, Zernike polynomials, and Frozen Seeing.

System and method of generating atmospheric turbulence for testing adaptive optical systems

A system for evaluation of optical quality of an optical device includes a light source configured to generate light, the generated light be received by an optical device. An interferometric lens apparatus is removably mounted to the optical device to generate interference fringes. A camera device is configured to receive and display the interference fringes, and a computer configured to analyze the interference fringes received from the camera device to determine aberrations of the optical device and generate a recommendation to correct the determined aberrations. Methods for evaluating the optical quality of an optical device are also described.

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Poluadera, NM, United States of America

Scott W Teare