John Gonglewski, Christooher De Hainaut, Curt Lampkin, Raymond Dymale
Optical Engineering, Vol. 27, Issue 9, 279785, (September 1988) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.7976762
TOPICS: Phased array optics, Wavefront sensors, Electromechanical design, Feedback control, Telescopes, Control systems design, Wavefronts, Control systems, Optical instrument design, Electro optical systems
This paper discusses the system design of a wavefront sampling system for a four-telescope optical phased array. This sampling system provides the input to an electromechanical feedback control system that dynamically phases the telescope array. We begin by presenting the basics of the optical phasing problem for a telescope array and then discuss design solutions that provide the necessary wavefront sensing for a feedback control system. The overall system design concentrates on simplicity despite the number of channels, while the optical design embodies a philosophy of invariance to field of view, the use of the first-order optical properties of the entrance/exit pupil relationship, and the exploitation of beam polarization for power conservation and electro-optical chopping.