Optimal and adaptive control of aero-optical wavefronts for adaptive optics.pdfVIP

J. Tesch and S. Gibson Vol. 29, No. 8 / August 2012 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 1625 Optimal and adaptive control of aero-optical wavefronts for adaptive optics Jonathan Tesch and Steve Gibson* University of California, Los Angeles, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, 420 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, California 90095-1597, USA *Corresponding author: gibson@ucla.edu Received October 31, 2011; revised May 15, 2012; accepted June 1, 2012; posted June 1, 2012 (Doc. ID 157304); published July 23, 2012 This paper compares two control methods to predict and correct aero-optical wavefronts derived from recent flight-test data. The first is an optimal linear time-invariant controller constructed from an identified state-space model of the turbulence flow. The second control method is an adaptive controller based on a recursive least- squares lattice filter. The performance of these control schemes versus classical integrator methods is investigated in an adaptive optics experiment that reproduces the aberrations from in-flight measurements of aero-optical tur- bulence. Experimental results show the improvement in wavefront correction achieved by both prediction meth- ods. Altering the flow characteristics of the disturbance wavefront during the control process illustrates the ability of the adaptive controller to track changes in the aberration statistics. © 2012 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 010.1080, 010.1300, 010.7350. 1. INTROD