High Bandwidth, Low Latency Wavefront Sensor

In this Phase I effort Attollo Engineering will develop a basic system design for a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor operating at a 250 kHz frame rate. This will include an optical design with microlens array, a detector design, and a custom, digital-pixel readout integrated circuit with macropixels that each calculate the laser spot position, thus minimizing the required data output and enabling the high frame rate. This effort will support the program goal of high-speed, low-latency wavefront sensing to enable pre-correction of directed energy beams for the observed aerodynamic optical disturbances in the beam path due to transonic flow conditions.