Abstract

There are a number of unique technical challenges in applying adaptive optical wavefront control in wide field of view systems. Aside from the fact that the wavefront characteristics can vary from field to field, the pupil mapping between the aperture of the telescope and the corrective element (deformable mirror) also distorts, causing varying influence functions over the field of the view. In addition, the technique for sampling the outgoing wavefront using holographic gratings is significantly complicated because of the large field. In the past few years, techniques to address these issues have been developed and successfully implemented through a hardware experiment, Integrated Beam Control Demonstration (IBCD), at Hughes Danbury Optical Systems, Inc.

© 1992 Optical Society of America