Rapid and Accurate Laser Guide Star Source and Turbulence Simulator

We propose a rapid and accurate bench-level Laser Guide Star Source and Turbulence simulator. Phase I will consist of the development of a study of sensitivity analysis to determine which properties of an LGS beacon are most relevant to an LGS AO system design on a 1-4 m telescope. The sensitivity analysis will be critical to determining which areas to focus on for technical development and help resolve any potential trade-offs in future system design work. The sensitivity analysis will also feed into and be informed by requirements flow down and concept development, which will be based primarily on computer simulation but should include limited component level hardware design and testing for critical components to verify the adequacy of the technique in simulating a LGS beacon. The proposed bench-level LGS simulator will be general in scope so that it can be easily modified to apply to essentially any reasonable LGS future concept. However, for the sake of concreteness, we will assume a design geared towards the mitigation of the tip-tilt problem, as a meaningful design prototype.