Performance of the Fourier Transform Reconstructor for the European Extremely Large Telescope

摘要

The forthcoming Extremely Large Telescopes, and the new generation of Extreme Adaptive Optics systems, carry on a boost in the number of actuators that makes the real-time correction of the atmospheric aberration computationally challenging. It is necessary to study new algorithms for performing Adaptive Optics at the required speed. Among the last generation algorithms that are being studied, the Fourier Transform Reconstructor (FTR) appears as a promising candidate. Its feasibility to be used for Single-Conjugate Adaptive Optics has been extensively proved by Poyneer et al. As part of the activities supported by the ELT Design Study (European Community's Framework Programme 6) we have studied the performance of this algorithm applied to the case of the European ELT, in two different cases: single-conjugate and ground-layer adaptive optics and we are studying different approaches to apply it to the more complex multi-conjugate case. The algorithm has been tested on ESO's OCTOPUS software, which simulates the atmosphere, the deformable mirror, the sensor and the closed-loop control. The performance has been compared with other algorithms as well as their response in the presence of noise and with various atmospheric conditions. The good results on performance and robustness, and the possibility of parallelizing the algorithm (shown by Rodriguez-Ramos and Marichal- Hernandez) make it an excellent alternative to the typically used Matrix-Vector Multiply algorithm.