High-Bandwidth, Large-Travel Fast-Steering Mirror for Ladar Seekers

The proposed Fine-steering Mirror (FSM) technology supports high-acceleration flyback and line-of-site (LoS) jitter compensation scanning for enhanced LADAR discrimination onboard interceptor seekers. This FSM combines large-travel, high-acceleration scanning with high-bandwidth LoS stabilization. A number of creative mechanical and servo control electronic innovations have been used to increase the servo control bandwidth of LHDC’s large-travel, high-accuracy FSM designed for a 100mm optical beam. Today’s pointing, tracking and imaging optical systems are in general limited in terms of angular resolution and residual jitter by the servo control bandwidth and surface figure error of the pointing mechanism. Excellent performance in both of these areas is required to support high-quality LADAR imaging. Additionally the ability to survive launch vibration and shock environments is necessary for mission success. The proposed effort extends the ability of FSM to provide improved servo control bandwidth along with high-acceleration, large-travel scanning and surface figure error performance in the harsh vibration environments of interceptor vehicles.