Fabrication of Corrective Optics for Aerodynamic Domes

The tangent ogive dome was developed to reduce drag during high-speed flight. In addition to the reduced drag during flight, the aerodynamic shape along with the hard ceramic material, minimizes the threat of damage due to solid or liquid airborne particles. It will be necessary for refractive corrector elements to be placed between the aerodynamic dome and the seeker optical system. We plan to manufacture a corrector element that is a bilaterally symmetric arch with aspheric terms using a suite of manufacturing technologies. These include ultrasonic assisted microgrinding, high speed VIBE polishing and deterministic sub-aperture polishing. The material chosen for the corrector optic is difficult to produce aspheric components due to its incompatibility with sub-aperture polishing techniques. In addition to fabricating the complex shape, work will also be done to show a path moving forward to use an Optimax modified sub-aperture polishing technique to polish materials such as multi-spectral zinc sulfide(e.x. Cleartran).