The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is studying the application and utility of various ground-based and space-based
optical sensors for improving surveillance of space objects in both Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geosynchronous
Earth Orbit (GEO). This information can be used to improve our catalog of space objects and will be helpful in the
resolution of satellite anomalies. At present, ground-based optical and radar sensors provide the bulk of remotely sensed
information on satellites and space debris, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. However, in recent
years, the Space-Based Visible (SBV) sensor was used to demonstrate that a synthesis of space-based visible data with
ground-based sensor data could provide enhancements to information obtained from any one source in isolation. The
incentives for space-based sensing include improved spatial resolution due to the absence of atmospheric effects and
cloud cover and increased flexibility for observations. Though ground-based optical sensors can use adaptive optics to
somewhat compensate for atmospheric turbulence, cloud cover and absorption are unavoidable. With recent advances in
technology, we are in a far better position to consider what might constitute an ideal system to monitor our surroundings
in space. This work has begun at the AFRL using detailed optical sensor simulations and analysis techniques to explore
the trade space involved in acquiring and processing data from a variety of hypothetical space-based and ground-based
sensor systems. In this paper, we briefly review the phenomenology and trade space aspects of what might be required in
order to use multiple band-passes, sensor characteristics, and observation and illumination geometries to increase our
awareness of objects in space.
Electrostatic Membrane Deformable Mirror (MDM) technology developed using silicon bulk micro-machining techniques offers the potential of providing low-cost, compact wavefront control systems for diverse optical system applications. Electrostatic mirror construction using bulk micro-machining allows for custom designs to satisfy wavefront control requirements for most optical systems. An electrostatic MDM consists of a thin membrane, generally with a thin metal or multi-layer high-reflectivity coating, suspended over an actuator pad array that is connected to a high-voltage driver. Voltages applied to the array elements deflect the membrane to provide an optical surface capable of correcting for measured optical aberrations in a given system. Electrostatic membrane DM designs are derived from well-known principles of membrane mechanics and electrostatics, the desired optical wavefront control requirements, and the current limitations of mirror fabrication and actuator drive electronics. MDM performance is strongly dependent on mirror diameter and air damping in meeting desired spatial and temporal frequency requirements. In this paper, we present wavefront control results from an embedded wavefront control system developed around a commercially available high-speed camera and an AgilOptics Unifi MDM driver using USB 2.0 communications and the Linux development environment. This new product, ClariFastTM, combines our previous ClarifiTM product offering into a faster more streamlined version dedicated strictly to Hartmann Wavefront sensing.
Electrostatic Membrane Deformable Mirror (MDM) technology developed using silicon bulk micro-machining techniques offers the potential of providing low-cost, compact wavefront control systems for diverse optical system applications. Electrostatic mirror construction using bulk micro-machining allows for custom designs to satisfy wavefront control requirements for most optical systems. An electrostatic MDM consists of a thin membrane, generally with a thin metal or multi-layer high-reflectivity coating, suspended over an actuator pad array that is connected to a high-voltage driver. Voltages applied to the array elements deflect the membrane to provide an optical surface capable of correcting for measured optical aberrations in a given system. Electrostatic membrane DM designs are derived from well-known principles of membrane mechanics and electrostatics, the desired optical wavefront control requirements, and the current limitations of mirror fabrication and actuator drive electronics. MDM performance is strongly dependent on mirror diameter and air damping in meeting desired spatial and temporal frequency requirements. In this paper, we discuss characterization measurements and modeling of MDM spatial and temporal performance for different mirror designs and present application results illustrating the diverse uses of MDM technology in optical wavefront compensation systems.
KEYWORDS: Mirrors, Actuators, Microelectromechanical systems, Wavefronts, Control systems, Iterated function systems, Silicon, Deformable mirrors, Control systems design, Micromachining
Electrostatic Membrane Deformable Mirrors (DM) developed using silicon bulk micro-machining techniques offer the potential of providing low-cost, compact wavefront control systems for diverse optical system applications. The basic approach to electrostatic mirror construction, using bulk micro-machining, is relatively simple, allowing for custom designs to satisfy wavefront control requirements for most optical systems. An electrostatic DM consists of a thin membrane suspended over an actuator pad array that is connected to a high-voltage driver. Voltages applied to the array elements deflect the membrane to provide an optical surface capable of correcting for measured optical aberrations in a given system. The actuator voltages required to correct a given aberration are determined from wavefront sensor measurements and the mirror influence functions and/or through the minimization of measured error in the closed-loop control system. Electrostatic membrane DM designs are derived from well-known principles of membrane mechanics and electrostatics, the desired optical wavefront control requirements, and the current limitations of mirror fabrication and actuator drive electronics. In this paper, we discuss the electrostatic DM design process in some detail and present modeling results illustrating the performance of specific designs in terms of their ability to correct Zernike optical aberrations.
Ground-based optical transmitter and receiver systems designed for active imaging, active tracking and laser ranging of satellites in Earth orbit are very sensitive to physical conditions limiting the radiometric returns for achieving these measurements. The initial design of these systems is often based on simple radiometric scaling laws that provide estimates of average radiometric returns and are derived from experimental data or from more complex theoretical calculations. While these laws are quite useful, it is often easy to lose sight of the initial assumptions made in their formulation, and hence, the limits of their accuracy for designing certain systems. The objective of this paper is to review some of the commonly used radiometric scaling laws for active systems and to establish guidelines for their use based on comparisons of their predictions with results from detailed wave-optics simulations for different system design requirements and physical conditions. The combined effects of laser and transmitter beam parameters, wave-front aberrations, atmospheric turbulence, and satellite optical cross-section are considered.
The Air Force Research Laboratory is interested in developing techniques for characterizing and discriminating satellites in Low and Geo-synchronous Earth Orbit (LEO and GEO). Certain materials used in constructing satellites possess unique polarization and wavelength dependent properties that may be useful for satellite discrimination and classification. In this work, we use the TASAT simulation to produce polarization renderings of detailed satellite models, with active and passive illumination, to predict polarization signatures of satellites in various Earth orbit scenarios. TASAT is a detailed tracking and controls simulation developed for modeling electro-optic tracking and imaging scenarios. Polarization renderings from passive illumination provide Stokes parameters representative of material polarization effects for the observed wavelength bands. Active illumination allows the incident polarization state to be changed. Thus, with suitable illuminating states and corresponding Stokes measurements, Mueller matrices may be formed from the active satellite returns, providing additional polarization signature information. Degree-of-polarization (DOP), diattenuation and retardance values calculated from the Stokes parameters and Mueuller matrices provide the polarization signature needed to test for satellite discrimination. We examine the variation of these polarization signatures for different satellite models situated in LEO and GEO observation scenarios. Signature variations for a visible and IR wavelength are considered. The results provide an indication of the feasibility of using material polarization properties for satellite discrimination to within the accuracy of our current materials database and polarization rendering capabilities.
Recent interest in imaging satellites in geo-synchronous earth orbit has led to the design of a ground-based active imaging system using a concept known as Fourier Telescopy. Fourier Telescopy systems use active laser illumination, aperture synthesis, and extensive computer processing to minimize atmospheric turbulence effects and form high-resolution images of distant stationary objects. Three laser transmitters of slightly different frequency illuminate the object with varying baseline separations to temporally encode object spatial frequency information in the energy backscattered from the object. Detection and demodulation of the temporal signals and processing using phase closure and wavefront reconstruction techniques yield measurements of the object's incoherent Fourier amplitude and phase distribution. We have developed a detailed wave optics simulation to analyze and optimize the performance of this system. Wavelength dependent renderings of 3-D satellite models and the statistical variations of object illumination determine the radiometric returns received for a given scenario and the effect on imaging system performance. This work uses the simulation to examine system performance for three different illumination laser wavelengths and for realistic system design limitations. System design trade-offs based on the wavelength dependence of satellite optical cross-section, atmospheric propagation, and diffraction are discussed. Our results indicate that a near infra-red (IR) wavelength may be most suitable for this system.
Speckle backscatter form actively illuminated satellites contains information on object size, shape and orientation and on the optical properties of the object materials. This speckle information is useful for object discrimination and classification tasks. In particular, the polarization properties of these materials may provide unique signatures that enhance the discrimination between certain objects. This simulation investigation explores the use of polarization information in speckle backscatter to form useful polarization signatures. The simulation uses detailed polarization renderings of objects and coherent field propagation techniques to form pupil plane speckle polarization components fields characteristic of the object materials' polarization properties. The fields are then converted to four speckle intensity fields using a four- channel polarimeter model and are spatially resolved with an array of detectors. Polarization signature information is obtained from Stokes parameters and Mueller matrices formed from these speckle measurements. The object polarization signatures considered include depolarization, diattenuation and retardance. These parameters are calculated for several object models to illustrate their possible use in object discrimination and to investigate their sensitivity to perturbing effects. The perturbing effects of detection noise, passive unpolarized background and atmospheric turbulence are considered. Spatial and temporal averaging of the Stokes parameter fields is shown to reduce the effect of these errors on the polarization parameters yielding improved signature measurements. Estimation and removal of unpolarized components from the speckle measurements is also shown to improve signature accuracy.
TASAT is a detailed tracking and controls simulation developed for modeling electro-optic tracking and imaging scenarios. In our work, the polarization rendering capabilities of TASAT have been exploited to arrive at a methodology for modeling coherent polarized speckle backscatter from an illuminated object. For coherent illumination, we form a complex combination of the polarized rendered fields with random phase and propagate them to the far field to simulate polarized speckle. The speckle return is then analyzed using a four-channel polarimeter model to yield four Stokes parameter fields. We review the approach used in developing the TASAT polarization rendering model and its extension to obtain polarized speckle and Stokes parameter fields. We then show that the simulation provides results which agree with theory and which illustrate polarization measurement variations with object constituent material properties and different object models. Stokes parameter spatial statistics are used to analyze simulation results. Our results suggest that these statistics may be useful in characterizing the effective polarization properties of object materials and for providing a diagnostic signature for some object.s
Sheared beam imaging (SBI) is a coherent active imaging technique that employs a pupil-plane phase difference measurement approach to overcome the perturbing effects of atmospheric turbulence. The technique has shown promise for applications such as imaging satellites from ground-based sites. However, atmospheric compensation is dependent on the effective atmospheric isoplanatic patch size; which mines that degradations can occur for larger objects. We present theory and simulation results that demonstrate this limitation and we suggest approaches to reduce the residual degradations caused by anisoplanatism. Our simulations use wave optics propagation through phase screens to model atmospheric turbulence effects.
The US Air Force Phillips Laboratory recently completed the Floodbeam Experiment (FBE), recording the first ever spatially resolved, coherent laser returns from non-augmented (non- retroreflectors), low earth orbit satellites. The experiment broadcast a near-IR, coherent laser at a selected set of low earth orbit satellites using a beam director and visible tracking system located at the Phillips Lab Starfire Optical Range (SOR). Tracking was accomplished during terminator periods when the satellite was illuminated by the sun and the transmitting/receiving site was in darkness. Thirty eight different satel- lites were illuminated during the experiment. The reflected laser return was collected with the 1.5m telescope at the SOR and focused on a low noise IR camera. The Floodbeam experiment gathered radiometric data, data on depolarization effects, and spatially resolved coherent speckle patterns. This paper will discuss the experimental hardware and the field results.
The ability to accurately measure the phase of the wavefront in an amplitude interferometer is fundamentally limited by the light level. Under high light conditions, the variance of the phase measurement is inversely proportional to the number of photons detected. In this paper, we review the basic theory of phase measurement for an optical heterodyne array imaging system for high light conditions. The theory is then extended to a sheared coherent interferometric photography (SCIP) system. Simulation and laboratory results verifying the theory and extending it to low light levels are then presented.
A straight-forward computer simulation technique is presented for determining the spatial intensity distribution that can be expected when a rough object is illuminated with partially coherent light. The technique is useful for problems in which the illumination source is a laser whose spectral content can be described as a sum of delta function components. Laboratory and computer simulation results that illustrate illumination coherence effects on imagery obtained with the method known as imaging correlography are presented.
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