Wavefront reconstruction using intensity measurements for real-time adaptive optics

The crucial step in adaptive optics feedback control is the reconstruction of the wavefront from wavefront sensor measurements. One of the sensors commonly used is the (Shack-)Hartmann sensor, which makes the wavefront reconstruction problem linear, in a least-squares sense. In this paper, a new methodology is proposed to reconstruct the wavefront for real-time adaptive optics control using the complete intensity measurements provided by the sensor, instead of the classical centroid algorithm which approximates the local wavefront slopes. In addition to an outline of the new wavefront reconstruction method, its performance is illustrated via a numerical simulation study. The advantages of the new method are highlighted by comparing it, in both open- and closed-loop, with a modal reconstruction algorithm that uses local wavefront slopes.