Related papers: Performance of MEMS-based visible-light adaptive o…

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology can provide for deformable mirrors (DMs) with excellent performance within a favorable economy of scale. Large MEMS-based astronomical adaptive optics (AO) systems such as the Gemini Planet…

One important frontier for astronomical adaptive optics (AO) involves methods such as Multi-Object AO and Multi-Conjugate AO that have the potential to give a significantly larger field of view than conventional AO techniques. A second key…

For future extremely large telescopes, error in extreme adaptive optics systems at small angular separations will be highly impacted by the lag time of the correction, which is typically on millisecond timescales; one solution is to apply a…

Advances in micro deformable mirror (DM) technologies such as MEMs, have stimulated interest in the characteristics of systems that include a high stroke mirror in series with a high actuator count mirror. This arrangement is referred to as…

For sufficiently wide ranges of applied control signals (control voltages), MEMS and piezoelectric Deformable Mirrors (DMs), exhibit nonlinear behavior. The nonlinear behavior manifests itself in nonlinear actuator couplings, nonlinear…

We present performance simulations for a proposed visible-light, multi-conjugate adaptive optics system for the 10-meter W. M. Keck I telescope that aims to deliver near diffraction-limited angular resolution at optical wavelengths. Our…

Predictive wavefront control is an important and rapidly developing field of adaptive optics (AO). Through the prediction of future wavefront effects, the inherent AO system servo-lag caused by the measurement, computation, and application…

The performance of an adaptive optics (AO) system on a 100m diameter ground based telescope working in the visible range of the spectrum is computed using an analytical approach. The target Strehl ratio of 60% is achieved at 0.5um with a…

We describe a system in use at the Lick Observatory 1-m Nickel telescope for near-simultaneous imaging at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. The combined availability of a CCD and a NICMOS-3 camera makes the system well-suited for…

Deformable mirrors with very high order correction generally have smaller dynamic range of motion than what is required to correct seeing over large aperture telescopes. As a result, systems will need to have an architecture that employs…

Performances of an adaptive optics (AO) system are directly linked with the quality of its alignment. During the instrument calibration, having open loop fast tools with a large capture range are necessary to quickly assess the system…

We present laboratory results of the closed-loop performance of the Magellan Adaptive Optics (AO) Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM), pyramid wavefront sensor (PWFS), and VisAO visible adaptive optics camera. The Magellan AO system is a…

In this paper, a liquid lens-based imaging receiver is proposed for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) visible light communication (VLC) systems. By dynamically adjusting the focal length and orientation angles of the liquid lens, the…

We performed closed-loop lab testing of large-format deformable mirrors (DMs) with hybrid variable reluctance actuators. TNO has been developing the hybrid variable reluctance actuators in support for a new generation of adaptive secondary…

A new high-order adaptive optics system is now being commissioned at the Lick Observatory Shane 3-meter telescope in California. This system uses a high return efficiency sodium beacon and a combination of low and high-order deformable…

The MCAO Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph (MAVIS) is a new visible instrument for ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT). Its Adaptive Optics Module (AOM) must provide extreme adaptive optics correction level at low galactic latitude and…

We present two experiments in closed-loop feedback control. In the first experiment, students control the pointing angle of a laser to "lock" the laser onto a "target." In the second, students stabilize the pathlength difference in two arms…

Multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) has been demonstrated by the CANARY instrument on the William Herschel Telescope. However, for proposed MOAO systems on the next generation Extremely Large Telescopes, such as EAGLE, many challenges…

The availability and performance of laser-based adaptive optics (AO) systems are strongly dependent on the power and quality of the laser beam before being projected to the sky. Frequent and time-consuming alignment procedures are usually…

The performance of adaptive optics systems is partially dependant on the algorithms used within the real-time control system to compute wavefront slope measurements. We demonstrate use of a matched filter algorithm for the processing of…