• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.132.2-132.2
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• 2011

We are developing Adaptive Optics (AO) system for astronomical use. The He-Ne laser works as an artificial light source. The tip-tilt correction servo is added to our AO system. The tip-tilt term, among the Zernike terms, is the biggest contributor of wavefront deformation caused by atmospheric turbulence at small telescopes. The tip-tilt correction servo consists of a Piezo tip-tilt platform with a mirror, a quadrant photodiode as a tip-tilt sensor, and controllers. The Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor measures the residual wavefront errors and they are corrected by the MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) deformable mirror. The MEMS deformable mirror allows the compact size at low cost compare to adaptive secondary mirror and other deformable mirrors. As the frame rates of the MEMS deformable mirror is about tens of kHz, the frame rates of the detector in wavefront sensor is the bottleneck of the wavefront correction speed. For faster performance, we replaced a CCD which provides frame rates only 70 Hz with a CMOS with frame rates up to 450 Hz.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.106-113
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• 2016

In this paper, we deal with the wavefront compensation capability of a silicon carbide (SiC) deformable mirror (DM) with 37 actuators for adaptive optics. The wavefront compensation capability of the SiC DM is predicted by computer simulation and examined by actual experiments with a closed-loop adaptive optics system consistsing of a light source, a phase plate, a SiC DM, a high speed Shack-Hartmann sensor, and a control computer. Distortion of wavefront is caused by the phase plate in the closed-loop adaptive optics system. The distorted wavefront has a peak-to-valley (PV) wavefront error of $0.3{\mu}m{\sim}0.9{\mu}m$ and root-mean-square (RMS) error of $0.06{\mu}m{\sim}0.25{\mu}m$. The high-speed Shack-Hartmann sensor measures the wavefront error of the distortion caused by the phase plate, and the SiC DM compensates for the distorted wavefront. The compensated wavefront has residual errors lower than $0.1{\mu}m$ PV and $0.03{\mu}m$ RMS. Consequently, we conclude that we can compensate for the distorted wavefront using the SiC DM in the closed-loop adaptive optics system with an operating frequency speed of 500 Hz.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.65.1-65.1
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• 2011

We built a simple Adaptive Optics (AO) system at laboratory. This AO system is a step toward developing AO system for astronomical use. In this step, the AO system consists of He-Ne laser as a artificial light source, wavefront sensor, MEMS (Micro electro mechanical system) type deformable mirror and several lenses. MEMS deformable mirror allows the compact system at low cost and the only several mm sized collimated beam. We made Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor using a lenslet array and a fast frame CCD. Its performance is verified using an artificial phase disturber and noting the movement of spot images by the lenslet array. The frame rate of the driving software is about 70 fps, depending on the control parameters. The characteristics of MEMS deformable mirror was measured which includes the voltage-to-deflection relation, influence function, and cross-talk. The total system is operated under closed-loop control for the artificial phase disturber and the wavefront is found to be compensated successfully.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.4 s.23
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• pp.110-119
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• 2005

In this paper, a new detection algorithm was proposed for finding the position of lenslet array spot pattern used to acquire laser wavefront. Based on the analysis of the required signal processing characteristics, we categorized into and designed four main signal processing functions. The proposed was designed in order to have robust feature against a variation of geometrical form of the spot and also implemented to have semi-automatic thresholding capability based on CCD noise analysis. For performance evaluation, we made qualitative and quantitative comparisons with Carvalho's algorithm which has been published in recent. In the given experimental spot images, the proposed could detect the spots which has 1/3 times lower than the least S/N of which Carvalho's can detect and could reach to a detection precision of 0.1 pixel at the S/N. In functional aspect, the proposed could separate all valid spots locally. From these results, the proposed could have a superior precision of location detection of spot pattern in wider S/N range.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.269-279
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• 2018

We are currently investigating the feasibility of a 1.6 m telescope with a laser-guide star adaptive optics (AO) system. The telescope, if successfully commissioned, would be the first dedicated adaptive optics observatory in South Korea. The 1.6 m telescope is an f/13.6 Cassegrain telescope with a focal length of 21.7 m. This paper first reviews atmospheric seeing conditions measured over a year in 2014~2015 at the Bohyun Observatory, South Korea, which corresponds to an area from 11.6 to 21.6 cm within 95% probability with regard to the Fried parameter of 880 nm at a telescope pupil plane. We then derive principal seeing conditions such as the Fried parameter and Greenwood frequency for eight astronomical spectral bands (V/R/I/J/H/K/L/M centered at 0.55, 0.64, 0.79, 1.22, 1.65, 2.20, 3.55, and $4.77{\mu}m$). Then we propose an AO system with a laser guide star for the 1.6 m telescope based on the seeing conditions. The proposed AO system consists of a fast tip/tilt secondary mirror, a $17{\times}17$ deformable mirror, a $16{\times}16$ Shack-Hartmann sensor, and a sodium laser guide star (589.2 nm). The high order AO system is close-looped with 2 KHz sampling frequency while the tip/tilt mirror is independently close-looped with 63 Hz sampling frequency. The AO system has three operational concepts: 1) bright target observation with its own wavefront sensing, 2) less bright star observation with wavefront sensing from another bright natural guide star (NGS), and 3) faint target observation with tip/tilt sensing from a bright natural guide star and wavefront sensing from a laser guide star. We name these three concepts 'None', 'NGS only', and 'LGS + NGS', respectively. Following a thorough investigation into the error sources of the AO system, we predict the root mean square (RMS) wavefront error of the system and its corresponding Strehl ratio over nine analysis cases over the worst ($2{\sigma}$) seeing conditions. From the analysis, we expect Strehl ratio >0.3 in most seeing conditions with guide stars.