Aero-optical effects, part I. System-level considerations: tutorial

This paper serves as part I of a two-part tutorial on "aero-optical effects." We first present background information to assist with our introduction of the topic. Next, we use the aerodynamic environment associated with a hemisphere-on-cylinder beam director to decompose the resulting aberrations (that arise due to aero-optical effects) in terms of piston, tilt, and higher-order phase errors. We also discuss the performance implications that these phase errors have on airborne-laser systems. Recognizing the complexity of these environments, we then discuss how one measures these phase errors using standard wavefront-sensing approaches and the impact these phase errors have on imaging performance. These system-level considerations provide the material needed to survey several sources of aberrations such as boundary layers and shear layers, as well as mechanical contamination, shock waves, and aero-acoustics-all of which we cover in part II of this two-part tutorial.