Global Jitter Control Design for Integrated Opto-mechanical Systems

This research will develop a control system methodology, including analysis, design, synthesis and implementation, that will improve the performance of laser weapons and other systems degraded by line-of-sight jitter. It will demonstrate that a global control approach improves jitter performance over traditional methods that employ independent cascaded control. The new methodology treats jitter and beamwalk systems as an integrated opto-mechanical structure, and controls active optical components including mirrors so that the servos are informed by what happens elsewhere in the system. For laser weapon systems, reduced jitter means improved lethality, and for light gathering systems including telescopes and cameras, better imaging resolution at greater range. Overall system design cycle time is reduced since it is easier to accommodate system changes as hardware constraints and parameters are ascertained. Benefits of the global coordinated control methodology will be demonstrated on the Aerospace Relay Mirror System (ARMS) in both simulation and on the Low Altitude Field Experiment working with Boeing-SVS. The research will begin with review of the ARMS testbed and proceed to development and integration of system-level models. Design and application of the global methodology will then lead into software and hardware implementation tasks, leading to a demonstration on the ARMS testbed.