SPARCE APERTURE ADAPTIVE OPTICS FOR A DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT

Development of air-to-air and air-to-ground imaging LADAR systems with high resolution is a difficult problem, because transmit and receive signals are distorted by atmospheric turbulence along the beam path. The distortion has high-frequency spatial and temporal components due to the movement of the platform. To dynamically correct the turbulence viewed from a tactical platform, the adaptive optic system needs to have a fast close-loop response. Our approach is to decompose the problem, allowing the wavefront corrector to respond "immediately" to a direct input (i.e. no array processing delays). The concept makes use of high-speed components that are commercially available. In Phase I, Boulder Nonlinear Systems (BNS) will demonstrate the adaptive optics (AO) concept and integrate the technology into an imaging LADAR design. In Phase II, BNS will build and demonstrate a breadboard system.