Beam control and a new laboratory testbed for adaptive optics in a maritime environment

The Naval Postgraduate School is developing a laboratory environment for testing advanced beam control methods for compensation of atmospheric turbulence in adaptive optics for use in a maritime environment. This paper presents a multichannel transverse adaptive filter for beam control. Adaptive filters are useful for such control due to the constantly changing nature of atmospheric turbulence. A multichannel filter is required due to the multiple deformable mirror input commands and wavefront sensor output measurements in the system. The filter is augmented with an integrated bias estimator. Additionally, this paper describes a method for generating horizontal-like atmospheric turbulence by using two liquid crystal spatial light modulators. The development and components of the new laboratory testbed are described, and preliminary simulation results are presented.