Pedro Escárate

Laboratory validation of a laser shaping system before guide star projection

Multiple sodium laser beacons are a crucial development in multi-conjugate adaptive optics systems that offers wide-field diffraction limited adaptive optics correction to the astronomical community. This correction is strongly dependent on the laser beam power and quality, so a beam shaping concept is currently being developed to speed-up calibration and alignment of the laser before every run. A method previously reported, has now been implemented on a laboratory bench using MEMS deformable mirrors. Necessary calibration and characterization of the deformable mirrors are described and the results for experimental amplitude correction are presented.

Minimum variance control for mitigation of vibrations in adaptive optics systems

In this paper, we address the design of a minimum variance controller (MVC) for the mitigation of vibrations in modern telescope adaptive optics (AO) systems. It is widely accepted that a main source of non-turbulent perturbations is the mechanical resonance induced by the wind or the instrumentation systems, such as fans and cooling pumps. To adequately mitigate vibrations, the application of frequency-based controllers has been considered in the past decade. In this work, we express the system model in terms of the tracking of a zero-input signal via the MVC. We show that the MVC is an equivalent representation of the linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller for the AO system. We also show that by developing the MVC, we can obtain different expressions, in terms of transfer functions, that offer insights into the behavior and expected performance of the controller in the frequency domain. In addition, we analyze the impact of the accuracy of the system and perturbations model on the mitigation of vibrations.

Closed-loop control for tip-tilt compensation on systems under vibration

Mechanical vibrations affect the performance in modern adaptive optics systems. These structural vibrations induce aberration mainly in tip-tilt modes that reduce the accuracy of the astronomical instrument. Therefore, control actions need to be taken. With this purpose we present a laboratory demonstration of vibration rejection of tip-tilt modes using closed-loop control, inducing vibration on the test bench via an eccentric motor with controllable frequency, in order to simulate the structural vibrations mentioned above. We measure the laser vibration and its tip-tilt aberration using a camera and a Shack Hartmann Wave Front Sensor. The control action is carried out by a Fast Steering Mirror (FSM).

Vibrations in MagAO: frequency-based analysis of on-sky data, resonance sources identification, and future challenges in vibrations mitigation

Frequency-based analysis and comparisons of tip-tilt on-sky data registered with 6.5 Magellan Telescope Adaptive Optics (MagAO) system on April and Oct 2014 was performed. Twelve tests are conducted under different operation conditions in order to observe the influence of system instrumentation (such as fans, pumps and louvers). Vibration peaks can be detected, power spectral densities (PSDs) are presented to reveal their presence. Instrumentation-induced resonances, close-loop gain and future challenges in vibrations mitigation techniques are discussed.

Closed Loop for Tip-Tilt Vibration Mitigation

Mechanical vibration affects the performance in modern Adaptive Optics systems. In this work we present a demonstration of a vibration mitigation control system for tip and tilt modes using a Fast Steering Mirror.

Development of telescope control system for the 50cm telescope of UC Observatory Santa Martina

The main telescope of the UC Observatory Santa Martina is a 50cm optical telescope donated by ESO to Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. During the past years the telescope has been refurbished and used as the main facility for testing and validating new instruments under construction by the center of Astro-Engineering UC. As part of this work, the need to develop a more efficient and flexible control system arises. The new distributed control system has been developed on top of Internet Communication Engine (ICE), a framework developed by Zeroc Inc. This framework features a lightweight but powerful and flexible inter-process communication infrastructure and provides binding to classic and modern programming languages, such as, C/C++, java, c#, ruby-rail, objective c, etc. The result of this work shows ICE as a real alternative for CORBA and other de-facto distribute programming framework. Classical control software architecture has been chosen and comprises an observation control system (OCS), the orchestrator of the observation, which controls the telescope control system (TCS), and detector control system (DCS). The real-time control and monitoring system is deployed and running over ARM based single board computers. Other features such as logging and configuration services have been developed as well. Inter-operation with other main astronomical control frameworks are foreseen in order achieve a smooth integration of instruments when they will be integrated in the main observatories in the north of Chile

Vibration model identification using the maximum likelihood method

Vibration effects acting in the science light path reduce the performance of the adaptive optics systems (AO). In order to mitigate the vibration effects and to improve the performance of the AO systems, an adequate model for the vibration in necessary. Traditionally, those vibrations are modelled as oscillators (with or without damping) driven by white noise. In this work, we address the identification of a continuous-time oscillator from discrete-time samples of the position. To this end, we use Maximum Likelihood estimation method to estimate the vibrations frequency.

Model Predictive Control for Laser Beam Shaping

Adaptive Optics (AO) is a technique used to mitigate the effect of the atmosphere in the resolution of scientific images. The performance of an adaptive optics system strongly depends on the quality of the laser beam projected to the sky in terms of amplitude and phase. Currently, cumbersome procedures are carried out to optimize the laser beam. This paper presents the performance of a Model Predictive Controller (MPC) to adjust the quality of the laser in a system of two deformable mirrors. The Results shows that the MPC effectively corrects the amplitude and phase of the laser beam using deformable mirrors with about 140 actuators and a separation between mirrors z = 3 [m].

Closed-loop control for laser beam shaping system before guide star projection

The adaptive optics system performance depends on multiple factors, including the quality of the laser beam before being projected to the mesosphere. Cumbersome procedures are required in the laser system to optimize the laser beam in terms of amplitude and phase. However, aberrations of the laser beam are still detected during the operations. The performance of laser projection systems can be improved compensating the effects of aberrations in the laser source or misalignment in the transfer optics before the laser beam propagating through the aperture. Despite the algorithm previously reported predict effective amplitude and phase correction is strongly dependent of an accurate DM characterization and transfer optics alignments. The use of feedback makes the system response better in presence of modeling error and external disturbances. A 2-DM closed loop approach for amplitude and a phase correction is designed. Finally the results of simulations and comparisons are discussed.

Vibrations in MagAO: resonance sources identification and first approaches for modeling and control

The Magellan Telescope Adaptive Optics System (MagAO) is subject to resonance effects induced by elements within the system instrumentation, such as fans and cooling pumps. Normalized PSDs are obtained through frequency-based analysis of closed-loop on-sky data, detecting and measuring vibration effects. Subsequently, a space-state model for the AO loop is obtained, using a standard AO loop scheme with an integrator-based controller and including the vibration effects as disturbances. Finally, a new control alternative is proposed, focusing on residual phase variance minimization through the design and simulation of an optimal LQG control approach.