625 research outputs found
Atmospheric tomography with separate minimum variance laser and natural guide star mode control
This paper introduces a novel, computationally efficient, and practical atmospheric tomography wavefront control architecture with separate minimum variance laser and natural guide star mode estimation. The architecture is applicable to all laser tomography systems, including multi conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO), laser tomography adaptive optics (LTAO), and multi object adaptive optics (MOAO) systems. Monte Carlo simulation results for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) MCAO system demonstrate its benefit over a previously introduced “ad hoc” split MCAO architecture, calling for further in-depth analysis and simulations over a representative ensemble of natural guide star (NGS) asterisms with optimized loop frame rates and modal gains
Spatio-angular Minimum-variance Tomographic Controller for Multi-Object Adaptive Optics systems
Multi-object astronomical adaptive-optics (MOAO) is now a mature wide-field
observation mode to enlarge the adaptive-optics-corrected field in a few
specific locations over tens of arc-minutes.
The work-scope provided by open-loop tomography and pupil conjugation is
amenable to a spatio-angular Linear-Quadratic Gaussian (SA-LQG) formulation
aiming to provide enhanced correction across the field with improved
performance over static reconstruction methods and less stringent computational
complexity scaling laws.
Starting from our previous work [1], we use stochastic time-progression
models coupled to approximate sparse measurement operators to outline a
suitable SA-LQG formulation capable of delivering near optimal correction.
Under the spatio-angular framework the wave-fronts are never explicitly
estimated in the volume,providing considerable computational savings on
10m-class telescopes and beyond.
We find that for Raven, a 10m-class MOAO system with two science channels,
the SA-LQG improves the limiting magnitude by two stellar magnitudes when both
Strehl-ratio and Ensquared-energy are used as figures of merit. The
sky-coverage is therefore improved by a factor of 5.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Applied Optic
Distributed Kalman filtering compared to Fourier domain preconditioned conjugate gradient for laser guide star tomography on extremely large telescopes
This paper discusses the performance and cost of two computationally efficient Fourier-based tomographic wavefront reconstruction algorithms for wide-field laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO). The first algorithm is the iterative Fourier domain preconditioned conjugate gradient (FDPCG) algorithm developed by Yang et al. [Appl. Opt. 45, 5281 (2006)], combined with pseudo-open-loop control (POLC). FDPCG’s computational cost is proportional to N log(N), where N denotes the dimensionality of the tomography problem. The second algorithm is the distributed Kalman filter (DKF) developed by Massioni et al. [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 28, 2298 (2011)], which is a noniterative spatially invariant controller. When implemented in the Fourier domain, DKF’s cost is also proportional to N log(N). Both algorithms are capable of estimating spatial frequency components of the residual phase beyond the wavefront sensor (WFS) cutoff frequency thanks to regularization, thereby reducing WFS spatial aliasing at the expense of more computations. We present performance and cost analyses for the LGS multiconjugate AO system under design for the Thirty Meter Telescope, as well as DKF’s sensitivity to uncertainties in wind profile prior information. We found that, provided the wind profile is known to better than 10% wind speed accuracy and 20 deg wind direction accuracy, DKF, despite its spatial invariance assumptions, delivers a significantly reduced wavefront error compared to the static FDPCG minimum variance estimator combined with POLC. Due to its nonsequential nature and high degree of parallelism, DKF is particularly well suited for real-time implementation on inexpensive off-the-shelf graphics processing units
Gemini multi-conjugate adaptive optics system review II: Commissioning, operation and overall performance
The Gemini Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics System - GeMS, a facility
instrument mounted on the Gemini South telescope, delivers a uniform, near
diffraction limited images at near infrared wavelengths (0.95 microns- 2.5
microns) over a field of view of 120 arc seconds. GeMS is the first sodium
layer based multi laser guide star adaptive optics system used in astronomy. It
uses five laser guide stars distributed on a 60 arc seconds square
constellation to measure for atmospheric distortions and two deformable mirrors
to compensate for it. In this paper, the second devoted to describe the GeMS
project, we present the commissioning, overall performance and operational
scheme of GeMS. Performance of each sub-system is derived from the
commissioning results. The typical image quality, expressed in full with half
maximum, Strehl ratios and variations over the field delivered by the system
are then described. A discussion of the main contributor to performance
limitation is carried-out. Finally, overheads and future system upgrades are
described.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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