Adaptive Optics Compensation in Deep Atmospheric Turbulence

Conventional adaptive optics technologies for compensation of weak to moderate atmospheric turbulence are ineffective in deep atmospheric turbulence. The challenges in this high Rytov regime are segregated into the two problems of developing an adaptive optics beacon and compensation of an optical field degraded well above the level of scintillation saturation. Techniques for compensation of the aberrated field based on segmented deformable mirrors and special handling of branch cuts in the phase for continuous surface deformable mirrors will be developed. An advanced technique for handling noise in very dim subapertures is also proposed. Two novel approaches for obtaining an adaptive optics beacon are proposed, one based on iterative illuminator techniques and another based on point source deconvolution from a moving target.