Simple Adaptive Optical System

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to apparatus for adaptive optics and, more particularly, to a simple adaptive optical system for correcting wavefront distortions.

2. Description of the Prior Art

Members of the astronomy community and other telescope users require undistorted telescopic wavefronts for accurate experimentation and measurement. Wavefront distortion results from imperfect telescope optical quality and atmospheric turbulence. The current method of reducing such distortion is through adaptive optical sensing and correction.

Typically, a system comprised of a nineteen channel deformable mirror, a thirty channel Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor, a planar two-axis, tip/tilt mirror, and a high-speed computer is used for correcting wavefront nonuniformities. The computer in this system is used for correcting wavefront nonuniformities. The computer in this system is used to provide real-time feedback from the sensor to the two adjustable mirrors. Although this system is both accurate and fairly reliable, it is complex and extremely expensive. Therefore, to alleviate the burden of the cost of such a complex system a simple means of providing distortion correction on incoming telescopic wavefronts is highly desirable.

The present invention provides a simpler and thereby less expensive means of correcting incoming telescopic wavefront distortions than prior art systems. This invention contemplates an adaptive optical control system comprising a lightweight, actuator-deformable mirror which reflects an incoming telescopic wavefront to a modified Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor. The wavefront sensor detects the slope of the incoming wavefront at several different locations across the incident beam and provides a set of analog signals, representing the slope of the wavefront at each of these locations, to a corresponding set of actuator drive circuits. These drive circuits perform both direct and difference amplification on the analog slope signals and subsequently provide excitation signals to a corresponding set of deformable mirror actuators. The excitation signals provided to these actuators serve to reshape the surface of the mirror, thereby correcting distortions in the incoming telescopic wavefront as detected by the wavefront sensor.

The major advantage of this simple adaptive optical system is that is does not require a costly computer system to provide real-time feedback from the wavefront sensor to the deformable mirror. Although a system such as the present invention can become more complex as the number of detection sensing and correction channels increase, in its present form it should provide distortion correction through third order aberrations in the incoming telescopic wavefront.

A primary objective of the present invention is to provide a means for economically correcting wavefront distortions in telescopic systems.

Another objective of the present invention is to provide a means for correcting wavefront distortions through direct analog coupling of a wavefront sensor to an actuator-deformable mirror.

Another objective of the present invention is to provide a means for correcting wavefront distortions without the need for costly computer control.

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a simple, direct coupled, adaptive optical system.

FIG. 2A is a rear view of an eight channel, actuator-deformable mirror.

FIG. 2B is a cross-sectional view of the mirror of FIG 2A.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of an eight channel, actuator-deformable mirror mounted to a voice-coil actuated, tip/tilt mount.

FIG. 4A is a top view of a modified Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor.

FIG. 4B is a cross-sectional view of the sensor of FIG. 4A.

Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a distorted incoming telescopic wavefront 10. The distorted wavefront 10 is incident upon an actuator-deformable mirror 11 which is mounted to a two-axis, tip/tilt mount 12. The reflection of this wavefront 10 by the mirror 11 produces a beam 13 which is incident upon a beamsplitter 14. The beamsplitter 14 divides this incident beam 13 into two separate beams 15, 20 of predetermined ratio. One portion 20 of the beam is reflected by the beamsplitter 14 and used for purposes such as experimentation and measurement. Another portion 15 of the beam is transmitted by the beamsplitter 14 and is incident upon a modified Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor 16. The modified Hartmann-Shack sensor 16 detects the slope of the wavefront at several different locations across this incident beam 15. A set of analog slope signals 17, corresponding to the wavefront slope detected at these locations, is generated by the sensor 16 and provided to a series of operational amplifier actuator drive circuits 18. These actuator drive circuits 18 perform both direct and difference amplification on the analog slope signals 17 and provide excitation signals 19 to the actuators in the deformable mirror 11 and the two-axis, tip/tilt mount 12. The application of the excitations signals 19 to the mirror and mount actuators 11, 12 results in the reformation and the repositioning of the mirror 11, respectively, with respect to the incoming telescopic wavefront 10, thereby compensating for distortions in the wavefront as detected by the wavefront sensor 16.

Referring to FIGS. 2A and 2B, there is shown an eight channel, actuator-deformable mirror 11. Each channel includes either a piezo-electric or electrostrictive actuator 22, which when excited modifies the curvature of the mirror in the area corresponding to the difference in detected slope. Tensioning rods 24 and springs 26 provide a preload mechanism for the piezo-electric or electrostrictive actuators 22 due to the inherent unidirectional expansion characteristics of these types of actuators 22 when they are electrically excited. It should be noted that the number of channels, and hence the number of actuators 22, may be more or less than eight depending upon the degree of distortion correction that is required.

Referring to FIG. 3, the eight channel deformable mirror 11 is attached to the two-axis, tip/tilt mount 12 through two, orthogonally-positioned voice-coil actuator sets and a series of elastic flexures 32. The cross-sectional view shown in FIG. 3 reveals only one actuator set 30. A voice-coil actuator set 30 includes two voice-coil drivers 31, each of which is positioned along the outside edge of the mirror 11 at opposite ends of its diameter. These voice-coil drivers 31 are shown in cross-section in FIG. 3 and are cylindrical in shape. A wire coil 33 is wound about the upper outer periphery of each voice-coil driver 31. The two voice-coil drivers 31 in each voice-coil actuator set 30 act in unison to provide a one-dimensional tilt of the entire deformable mirror structure 11 about a central axis point 34. The two voice-coil actuator set arrangement provides two-dimensional first order tilt correction of the reflecting surface 28 as detected by the Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor 16.

Referring to FIGS. 4A and 4B, there is shown a modified Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor 16 with a single two-dimensional sensor 40 positioned in the center and eight one-dimensional sensors 42 positioned along the periphery. A typical Hartmann-Shack sensor contains only the more complex two-dimensional sensors. The two-dimensional sensor 40, called the central sensor, includes a lens 44 which projects a beam 45 upon a quad detector 48. The eight one-dimensional sensors 42, called peripheral limb sensors, each include a lens 46 which projects a beam 47 upon a corresponding dual detector 49. Since the beams 45, 47 produced in each of these sensors 40, 42 are converging, the image produced from these beams 45, 47 upon the surface of the corresponding detectors 48, 49 is a spot. The position of each spot is detected through an electro-optical process which produces an analog signal 17 (see FIG. 1) representing the slope of the wavefront 15 incident upon the corresponding sensor lens.

Referring again to FIG. 1, the actuator drive circuits 18 which process the analog slope signals 17 are different for each type of mirror actuator 22, 30. The excitation signals 19 for the two voice-coil actuator sets are derived directly from the slope detected by the central two-dimensional sensor 40 of the modified Hartmann-Shack sensor 16. When the slope detected by the central sensor 40 is amplified and applied to the corresponding voice-coil actuator set 30, the position of the entire mirror structure 11 is adjusted to reduce any offsets in this detected slope.

The excitation signals 19 for the piezo-electric or electrostrictive actuators 22, shown in FIG. 2, are derived from the difference in detected slope between the central sensor 40 and the limb sensors 42. This difference in detected slope is referred to as the curvature error. When the curvature error between the central sensor 40 and a particular limb sensor 42 is amplified and applied to the corresponding actuator 22, the formation of the mirror surface is modified to reduce the curvature error of the deformable mirror 11 in that particular area.

By reducing the slope offsets and the curvature errors detected by the modified Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor 16, the distortions in the beam 13 reflected by the deformable mirror 11 are reduced. This reduction in distortions allows for experimentation and measurement performed on the portion of the beam 20 reflected by the beamsplitter 14 to be accomplished with greater overall accuracy.