Jim Wyant is an educator, an engineer, a scientist, and an inventor; but today I'm going to talk about his remarkable talents as a businessman and entrepreneur. As many of you may know, I was one of Jim's students and I went on to become his business partner in both WYKO and 4D Technology. Over the 43 years that we have known each other, I watched Jim at work and we had a lot of fun so here are a few stories and some lessons learned from Jim's amazing success in business.
We describe a new, simple wavefront sensing method that uses a single measurement of a defocused star and a neural network to determine low-order wavefront components. The neural net is trained on computed diffracted star image data at 640 nm to output annular Zernike terms for an obscured circular aperture over a discrete range of all values. In the context of an actual star, the neural-net also provides the Fried’s parameter as an estimation of atmospheric turbulence. It is shown that the neural-net can produce a robust, high accuracy solution of the wavefront based on a single measurement. The method can also be used to simultaneously determine both on-axis and fielddependent wavefront performance from a single measurement of stars throughout the field. The prototype system can run at a rate of about 1 Hz with Python interpreted code, but higher speeds, up to video rates, are possible with compilation, proper hardware and optimization. This technique is particularly useful for low-order active-optics control and for optical alignment. A key advantage of this new method is that it only requires a single camera making it a simple cost-effective solution that can take advantage of an existing camera that may already be in an optical system. Results for this method are compared to high-precision interferometric data taken with a 4D Technology, PhaseCam interferometer and with an Innovations Foresight StarWave Shack Hartmann sensor from ALCOR SYSTEM under well-controlled conditions to validate performance. We also look at how the system has been implemented to use starlight for aligning multiple mirror telescopes in the presence of atmospheric seeing.
We demonstrate an instantaneous phase-shift, point diffraction interferometer that achieves high accuracy and is capable of measuring a single pulse of light at NA greater than 0.8.
Conference Committee Involvement (3)
Tribute to James C. Wyant: The Extraordinaire in Optical Metrology and Optics Education
2 August 2021 | San Diego, California, United States
Interferometry XII: Techniques and Analysis
2 August 2004 | Denver, Colorado, United States
Precision Optical Measurements
18 September 2001 | Tucson, AZ, United States
Course Instructor
NON-SPIE: The Fast Fourier Transform
This course was taught for 3 years at the San Diego meetings. It covered the fast Fourier transform (FFT,) how to use it, along with multiple applications.
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