Fast hardware implementation of tomography for multi-guidestar adaptive optics

Donald Gavel; Marc Reinig; Carlos Cabrera

doi:10.1117/12.618430

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25 August 2005 Fast hardware implementation of tomography for multi-guidestar adaptive optics

Donald Gavel, Marc Reinig, Carlos Cabrera

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Proceedings Volume 5903, Astronomical Adaptive Optics Systems and Applications II; 59030F (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.618430
Event: Optics and Photonics 2005, 2005, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

An adaptive optics system using multiple deformable mirrors and an array of guidestars can correct over a wider field of view than traditional single DM systems and can also eliminate the cone-effect error due to the finite altitude of laser guidestars. In large telescope systems, such as the envisioned 30-meter telescope, or TMT, the extraordinarily large amount of computation needed to implement multi-conjugate adaptive optics at atmospheric turnover rates is prohibitive for ordinary CPUs, even when another ten years of computer development is taken into account. We present here a novel approach, implementing a fast iterative version of the key inverse tomography calculations in an array of parallel computing elements. Our initial laboratory experiments using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are promising in terms of speed and convergence rates. In this paper we present the theory and results from simulations and experiments.

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Donald Gavel, Marc Reinig, and Carlos Cabrera "Fast hardware implementation of tomography for multi-guidestar adaptive optics", Proc. SPIE 5903, Astronomical Adaptive Optics Systems and Applications II, 59030F (25 August 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.618430

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