3D WAVEFRONT CONTROL

A new control concept is proposed which can significantly enhance the performance ofthe Airborne Laser beam control. This control process allows high quality wavefrontinformation to be obtained even using extended sources of many theta-noughts in size.In simulation, a simple version increased high-order strehl 1.67X and on-axis irradianceby 5.7X over a 120 km horizontal path with a 1mx1m extended source.Besides the major benefit to the ABL program, there is another commercial application.The Last-Mile Optical Link involves high bandwidth laser communication overnear-ground horizontal paths up to 5 kilometers long. With DWDM (Dense WavelengthDivision Multiplexing), the need is to image a first fiber source onto a secondfiber receiver several kilometers away. Optical efficiency requires a high strehlto avoid fades and resulting data loss. This sensor will greatly increasereliability.