We report experimental results that demonstrate compensation of extended turbulence and thermal-blooming of high-energy lasers using target-in-the-loop techniques in a scaled laboratory environment. For these experiments the deformable mirror figure was controlled by an algorithm designed to maximize the target-plane intensity as measured by a camera at the transmitter. Results using this TIL configuration were compared under identical conditions to results obtained under control of a Hartmann wavefront sensor and least-squares reconstructor. Experiments were performed for a variety of propagation scenarios anticipated for tactical HEL applications and in all cases the TIL system was seen to outperform the conventional Hartmann-driven adaptive-optics system. We will discuss the details of the the target-in-the-loop algorithm, the laboratory configuration, and the experimental results.

Date Published: 23 August 2005
PDF: 14 pages
Proc. SPIE 5895, Target-in-the-Loop: Atmospheric Tracking, Imaging, and Compensation II, 58950N (23 August 2005); doi: 10.1117/12.620949

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5895:
Target-in-the-Loop: Atmospheric Tracking, Imaging, and Compensation II
Michael T. Valley; Mikhail A. Vorontsov, Editor(s)