Object-oriented Matlab adaptive optics toolbox

Object-Oriented Matlab Adaptive Optics (OOMAO) is a Matlab toolbox dedicated to Adaptive Optics (AO) systems. OOMAO is based on a small set of classes representing the source, atmosphere, telescope, wavefront sensor, Deformable Mirror (DM) and an imager of an AO system. This simple set of classes allows simulating Natural Guide Star (NGS) and Laser Guide Star (LGS) Single Conjugate AO (SCAO) and tomography AO systems on telescopes up to the size of the Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT). The discrete phase screens that make the atmosphere model can be of infinite size, useful for modeling system performance on large time scales. OOMAO comes with its own parametric influence function model to emulate different types of DMs. The cone effect, altitude thickness and intensity profile of LGSs are also reproduced. Both modal and zonal modeling approach are implemented. OOMAO has also an extensive library of theoretical expressions to evaluate the statistical properties of turbulence wavefronts. The main design characteristics of the OOMAO toolbox are object-oriented modularity, vectorized code and transparent parallel computing. OOMAO has been used to simulate and to design the Multi-Object AO prototype Raven at the Subaru telescope and the Laser Tomography AO system of the Giant Magellan Telescope. In this paper, a Laser Tomography AO system on an ELT is simulated with OOMAO. In the first part, we set-up the class parameters and we link the instantiated objects to create the source optical path. Then we build the tomographic reconstructor and write the script for the pseudo-open-loop controller

Characterisation of the influence function non-additivities for a 1024-actuator MEMS deformable mirror

In order to evaluate the potential of MEMS deformable mirrors for open-loop applications, a complete calibration process was performed on a 1024-actuator mirror. The mirror must be perfectly calibrated to obtain deterministic membrane deflection. The actuator's stroke-voltage relationship and the effect of the non- additivity of the influence functions are studied and finally integrated in an open-loop control process. This experiment aimed at minimizing the residual error obtained in open-loop control.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, Proceedings of the 1st AO for ELT conference, June 2009, Pari

Radial thresholding to mitigate Laser-Guide-Star aberrations on Centre-of-Gravity-based Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors

Sodium Laser Guide Stars (LGSs) are elongated sources due to the thickness and the finite distance of the sodium layer. The fluctuations of the sodium layer altitude and atom density profile induce errors on centroid measurements of elongated spots, and generate spurious optical aberrations in closed--loop adaptive optics (AO) systems. According to an analytical model and experimental results obtained with the University of Victoria LGS bench demonstrator, one of the main origins of these aberrations, referred to as LGS aberrations, is not the Centre-of-Gravity (CoG) algorithm itself, but the thresholding applied on the pixels of the image prior to computing the spot centroids. A new thresholding method, termed ``radial thresholding'', is presented here, cancelling out most of the LGS aberrations without altering the centroid measurement accuracy.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Negating effects from sodium profile variations for TMT: the MOR truth wavefront sensor of NFIRAOS

The Moderate Order Radial (MOR) Truth Wavefront Sensor (TWFS) of NFIRAOS, the facility AO system for TMT, is a visible light order 12x12 subaperture Shack-Hartmann WFS. Its role is to sense radial wavefront errors arising from variations in the Sodium layer profile that are not sensed by the on-instrument near infrared tip-tilt focus wavefront sensor at a sampling frequency on the order of one Herz. It works in concert with the High Order Low bandwidth (HOL) TWFS, which will use a 120x120 subaperture Shack-Hartmann WFS that senses slow variations in telescope flexure and the rotation of the pupil. Top-level requirements for NFIRAOS leave little margin for degradation in sky coverage or additional implementation wavefront errors introduced by the operation of the MOR TWFS. In this paper, we explore MOR TWFS design trade studies on the number of subapertures, sampling rate, the width of the MOR TWFS visible bandpass, and the split in light between the MOR and HOL TWFS, and present a design for a system which meets the top level requirements by not degrading the high sky coverage of NFIRAOS (50% sky coverage at the Galactic poles) and rejecting the radial modes with a residual wavefront error of 10nm

Progress toward developing the TMT adaptive optical systems and their components

Atmospheric turbulence compensation via adaptive optics (AO) will be essential for achieving most objectives of the TMT science case. The performance requirements for the initial implementation of the observatory's facility AO system include diffraction-limited performance in the near IR with 50 per cent sky coverage at the galactic pole. This capability will be achieved via an order 60x60 multi-conjugate AO system (NFIRAOS) with two deformable mirrors optically conjugate to ranges of 0 and 12 km, six high-order wavefront sensors observing laser guide stars in the mesospheric sodium layer, and up to three low-order, IR, natural guide star wavefront sensors located within each client instrument. The associated laser guide star facility (LGSF) will consist of 3 50W class, solid state, sum frequency lasers, conventional beam transport optics, and a launch telescope located behind the TMT secondary mirror. In this paper, we report on the progress made in designing, modeling, and validating these systems and their components over the last two years. This includes work on the overall layout and detailed opto-mechanical designs of NFIRAOS and the LGSF; reliable wavefront sensing methods for use with elongated and time-varying sodium laser guide stars; developing and validating a robust tip/tilt control architecture and its components; computationally efficient algorithms for very high order wavefront control; detailed AO system modeling and performance optimization incorporating all of these effects; and a range of supporting lab/field tests and component prototyping activities at TMT partners. Further details may be found in the additional papers on each of the above topics

Cryogenic detector preamplifer developments at the ANU

We present a summary of the cryogenic detector preamplifier development programme under way at the ANU. Cryogenic preamplifiers have been demonstrated for both near-infrared detectors (Teledyne H1RG and Leonardo SAPHIRA eAPD as part of development for the GMTIFS instrument) and optical CCDs (e2v CCD231-84 for use with the AAT/Veloce spectrograph). This approach to detector signal conditioning allows low-noise instrument amplifiers to be placed very close to an infra-red detector or optical CCD, isolating the readout path from external interference noise sources. Laboratory results demonstrate effective isolation of the readout path from external interference noise sources. Recent progress has focussed on the first on-sky deployment of four cryogenic preamp channels for the Veloce Rosso precision radial velocity spectrograph. We also outline future evolution of the current design, allowing higher speeds and further enhanced performance for the demanding applications required for the on instrument wavefront sensor on the Giant Magellan Integral Field Spectrograph (GMTIFS).This research was supported under Australian Research Council's Linkage Project funding scheme (LP150100620) in partnership with the Australian National University and Giant Magellan Telescope Organisation

Progress toward developing the TMT adaptive optical systems and their components

Atmospheric turbulence compensation via adaptive optics (AO) will be essential for achieving most objectives of the TMT science case. The performance requirements for the initial implementation of the observatory's facility AO system include diffraction-limited performance in the near IR with 50 per cent sky coverage at the galactic pole. This capability will be achieved via an order 60x60 multi-conjugate AO system (NFIRAOS) with two deformable mirrors optically conjugate to ranges of 0 and 12 km, six high-order wavefront sensors observing laser guide stars in the mesospheric sodium layer, and up to three low-order, IR, natural guide star wavefront sensors located within each client instrument. The associated laser guide star facility (LGSF) will consist of 3 50W class, solid state, sum frequency lasers, conventional beam transport optics, and a launch telescope located behind the TMT secondary mirror. In this paper, we report on the progress made in designing, modeling, and validating these systems and their components over the last two years. This includes work on the overall layout and detailed opto-mechanical designs of NFIRAOS and the LGSF; reliable wavefront sensing methods for use with elongated and time-varying sodium laser guide stars; developing and validating a robust tip/tilt control architecture and its components; computationally efficient algorithms for very high order wavefront control; detailed AO system modeling and performance optimization incorporating all of these effects; and a range of supporting lab/field tests and component prototyping activities at TMT partners. Further details may be found in the additional papers on each of the above topics

Mean-square residual error of a wavefront after propagation through atmospheric turbulence and after correction with Zernike polynomials

The root-mean-square (rms) of the residual wavefront, after propagation through atmospheric turbulence and corrected from Zernike polynomials, has been derived for the von Kármán turbulence model. The rms for any location in the telescope pupil and the pupil average rms have been calculated. It is shown that the residual rms on the edge of the pupil can be up to 35% larger than the pupil average residual rms. The results are useful to estimate the required rms stroke of deformable mirror (DM) actuators when they are used as a second stage of correction either in a tip–tilt, single-DM configuration or in a tip–tilt, two-DM (woofer–tweeter) setup

Fast iterative optimal estimation of turbulence wavefronts with recursive block Toeplitz covariance matrix

The estimation of a corrugated wavefront after propagation through the atmosphere is usually solved optimally with a Minimum-Mean-Square-Error algorithm. The derivation of the optimal wavefront can be a very computing intensive task especially for large Adaptive Optics (AO) systems that operates in real-time. For the largest AO systems, efficient optimal wavefront reconstructor have been proposed either using sparse matrix techniques or relying on the fractal properties of the atmospheric wavefront. We propose a new method that exploits the Toeplitz structure in the covariance matrix of the wavefront gradient. The algorithm is particularly well-suited to Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor based AO systems. Thanks to the Toeplitz structure of the covariance, the matrices are compressed up to a thousand-fold and the matrix-to-vector product is reduced to a simple one-dimension convolution product. The optimal wavefront is estimated iteratively with the MINRES algorithm which exhibits better convergence properties for ill-conditioned matrices than the commonly used Conjugate Gradient algorithm. The paper describes, in a first part, the Toeplitz structure of the covariance matrices and shows how to compute the matrix-to-vector product using only the compressed version of the matrices. In a second part, we introduced the MINRES iterative solver and shows how it performs compared to the Conjugate Gradient algorithm for different AO systems