The FAME design consists of a pre-formed, deformable thin mirror sheet with an active support system. The thin face sheet provides a close to final surface shape with very high surface quality. The active array provides the support, and through actuation, the control to achieve final surface shape accuracy.
In this paper the development path, trade-offs and demonstrator design of the FAME active array is presented. The key step in the development process of the active array is the design of the mechanical structure and especially the optimization of the actuation node positions, where the actuator force is transmitted to the thin mirror sheet. This is crucial for the final performance of the mirror where the aim is to achieve an accurate surface shape, with low residual (high order) errors using the minimum number of actuators. These activities are based on the coupling of optical and mechanical engineering, using analytical and numerical methods, which results in an active array with optimized node positions and surface shape.
