Large Space Optics Alignment Sensor

Under this Phase I SBIR Kestrel Corporation proposes to demonstrate the advantages of a novel optical technique for measuring wavefront aberrations as a means for aligning large, segmented, space telescopes such as those that might be employed in a SpaceBased Laser (SBL) Weapon system. The same technology has applications as a wavefront sensor for determining aberrations in the transmitted beam. The proposed technique has been conceptually demonstrated during laboratory experiments for a medicalapplication where the sensor reconstructed phase maps under highly aberrated conditions that could not accurately be measured using conventional wavefront sensors. The technique could potentially overcome existing shortfalls in wavefront sensing byproviding increased accuracy, improved optical efficiency, relaxed sensor alignment requirements, measurement over surface discontinuities, and greatly extended dynamic range. The most direct military application of the proposed work is with the DoD SpaceBased Laser Program as a wavefront sensor that is better suited to the highly aberrated and large amplitude misalignments expected by this weapon system.The basis for our commercialization is an adaptation of the technology to a medical problem inophthalmic imaging. The focus of these interests is adapting the novel wavefront sensing research to cornea wavefront measurements and in using the sensor as a replacement for existing wavefront measurement techniques in an adaptive optics enhancement tofundus imaging. There exist two marketing targets for the instrument and the operating and data analysis software provided with it. The first is with the eye banks. There are upwards of 150 eye banks in the US. While this is not a large market, owing tothe cornea screening system's unique measurement capability, we will capture the entire market. There also exists a well-defined market involving the application of the basic technology to in-vivo measurements. This market area is the more lucrative ofthe two, and is expected to emerge from the research and marketing activities of the original effort.