Dynamic Aberration Correction for Conformal Window of High-Speed Aircraft Using Optimized Model-Based Wavefront...

Area of Science:

• Optical engineering
• Aerospace engineering
• Adaptive optics

Background:

• Conformal windows on high-speed aircraft optimize aerodynamics but introduce dynamic aberrations.
• These aberrations vary with viewing angle and degrade infrared remote sensor performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a model-based wavefront sensorless adaptive optics (WSLAO) system for correcting dynamic aberrations in infrared remote sensors with conformal windows.
• To optimize the correction process by focusing on dominant aberration modes and minimizing computational load.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a deformable mirror (DM) to simulate dynamic aberrations from a conformal window.
• Implemented a model-based WSLAO approach using Lukosz modes and image spectral density as the metric function.
• Employed a 52-channel DM for aberration correction and compared optimized vs. un-optimized correction strategies.

Main Results:

• Simulations indicated that conformal window aberrations are primarily low-order Lukosz modes.
• Optimized correction, focusing on dominant modes, showed slightly improved image sharpness (1.436 × 10⁻⁵ vs. 1.427 × 10⁻⁵).
• The model-based WSLAO system demonstrated convergence twice as fast as the traditional stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) method.

Conclusions:

• Model-based WSLAO effectively corrects dynamic aberrations induced by conformal windows in infrared remote sensors.
• Optimizing correction by targeting dominant modes enhances performance and efficiency.
• The WSLAO approach offers a significant speed advantage over conventional methods for dynamic aberration correction.