High Bandwidth Fast Steering Mirror

Air flowing over the fuselage of aircraft can induce both mechanical vibrations in the platform. Furthermore, the turbulent air flow induced by the aircraft can cause light propagating through it to become aberrated due to the aero-optical disturbances. These aero-optical and aero-mechanical disturbances have a strong effect on the pointing of the light propagated through them. The speed of these effects is much higher than normal atmospheric aberrations. Current fast steering mirror (FSM) technology cannot achieve the high bandwidths required for adequate compensation. In this effort we propose to develop a high speed FSM capable of improved compensation based on our successful work developing other aero-optical compensation systems over the last 10 years.