Low Cost Adaptive Optics for Tactical LADAR

Future military aircraft will rely heavily on active laser systems to perform functions such as reconnaissance imaging, target designation, communications and directed energy. However, there is significant difficulty in overcoming the effects of atmospheric turbulence and platform vibrations. Accommodating the large aperture sizes required for high-resolution imaging is also a significant challenge. CTI proposes to design and develop an adaptive, sparse aperture system to enable high-resolution imaging and targeting in the presence of atmospheric turbulence, platform vibration, and practical aircraft space limitations. CTI proposes a complete system concept, and this Phase I/II effort develops a key sub-system: an adaptable, sparse aperture transmitter. The Phase I program includes generating system design requirements, developing a system model, performing analysis to determine component requirements, conducting a risk reduction experiment using existing hardware, and generating a preliminary system design. In Phase II the adaptive sparse aperture transmitter will be built and tested with dynamic atmospheric turbulence at the WPAFB testing tower, or other suitable government test site. The proposed novel approach meets the requirement for performing high-speed adaptive optic compensation, and has significant advantages over more conventional approaches. CTI's extensive experience with real-world ladar systems brings significant leverage to the proposed program.