In order to gain insight into the different mechanisms involved in the optical degradation transmitted by infrared (IR)
windows at supersonic flight speeds, wave front sensing has been used to quantify aero-optical effects on side-mounted
windows of a supersonic fore-body in a series of wind-tunnel experiments. Flow-induced aberrations have been
measured at partially duplicated flight conditions at Mach 3.7 and for different mass-density values corresponding to
altitudes ranging from 14 up to 22 km. For each altitude condition different lines of sight and window slopes have been
considered. Apart from steady shockwave effects,
laminar-to-turbulent transition took place on the upstream window
and generated intermittency phenomena in the boundary layer whereas on the downstream window, shear layer was
completely detached so that full turbulent occurred. To capture these unsteady and turbulent effects the flow-induced
optical distortions have been "frozen" by using a 15 ns, 40 Hz pulsed laser at 532 nm. The ability of the Shack-Hartmann
wave front sensing technique employed to substract a reference permitted a simple calibration procedure to ensure
accurate measurements. Sets of curves of optical phase power spectra and FTMs obtained relating to the various
aerodynamic parameters involved will be presented. Their distribution shows a correct behavior according to
aerodynamic parameter variations. Isotropic turbulent characteristics could be inferred from the results on the
downstream window whereas complete anisotropy prevailed for the upstream window. First comparisons of the results
with turbulent aero-optical model will be further discussed at the conference. Further results induced by steady flow
components are compared in a companion paper4 in the Conference with CFD steady-state Reynolds-averaged
Navier-Stokes simulations.
Optical aberrations induced by turbulent flows are critical issues for the performance of an airborne optical system. In
that context experiments were performed on a test-body at Mach 3.7 with several high Reynolds number in the S3MA
wind tunnel of ONERA. A Shack-Hartman wave front sensing was performed (see companion paper of R. Deron).
The objective of this work was to develop a computational algorithm to model the wave front distortions in temporal
averaged field.
First the aerodynamical flow field is obtained by RANS computation around the test body and mass-density is
interpolated in an optical grid. Then wave front has been calculated using ray tracing from eikonal equations. For this
validation two Reynolds numbers were retained and the boundary layer is turbulent on downstream window. A planar
optical beam is emitted from the window and passes through the inhomogeneous media from the boundary layer to the
shock wave. Various pupil, angle positions and lines of sight are considered. Zernike decomposition and MTF
computation allow modal analysis in the near field condition and evaluation of the image quality respectively. Tilt effects
appear to be the dominant aberration while higher orders have a limited impact on the image quality, except for large
departures from the normal of the window. Discrepancies observed according to the line of sight variation are analysed.
Finally simulations results compare favorably with the measurements made with the Shack-Hartmann wave front
sensing. So this computational study is conforted and allows to complete the experiment.
Airborne laser countermeasure applications (DIRCM) are hampered by the turbulence of jet engine exhaust. The
effects of this source of perturbation on optical propagation have still to be documented and analyzed in order to get a
better insight into the different mechanisms of the plume perturbations and also to validate CFD/LES codes. For that
purpose, wave front sensing has been used as a non-intrusive optical technique to provide unsteady and turbulent
optical measurements through a plume of a jet engine installed at a fixed point on the ground. The experiment has
been implemented in October 2007 along with other optical measuring techniques at Volvo Aero Corporation
(Trollhättan, Sweden). This study is part of a European research programme dealing with DIRCM issues. The Shack-
Hartmann (SH) wave front sensing technique was employed. It consisted of 64 x 64 lenslets coupled to a 1024x1024
pixel Dalsa CCD sensor working at a sampling rate of 40 Hz. A 15 ns pulsed laser synchronized with the SH sensor
enabled "freezing" turbulence in each SH image. The ability of the technique to substract a reference permitted a
simple calibration procedure to ensure accurate and reliable measurements despite vibration environment.
Instantaneous phases are reconstructed using Fourier techniques so as to obtain a better spatial resolution against
turbulent effects. Under any given plume condition, overall tilt aberration prevails. Phase power spectra derived from
phase statistics are drawn according to the plume main axis and to normal axis. They compare favorably well to the
decaying Kolmogorov power law on a useful high spatial frequency range. Averaged phases are also decomposed into
Zernike polynomials to analyze optical mode behavior according to engine status and to plume abscissa. With overall
tilt removed, turbulent DSP's amplitude drops by a factor of 30 to 40 and mean aberrations by a factor of 10 from an
abscissa 1 meter to another 3.5 meters away from the engine nozzle, due to quite different turbulent conditions.
A Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor has been used to characterize non-isotropic turbulence simulated in a transonic wind-tunnel. Wavefront measurements have been obtained for a large number of turbulent conditions.
The phase 2-D power spectra exhibit standard Kolmogorov -11/3 power law but also -17/3 power law in the transverse direction, which appears to be a new characteristic for such turbulent flows. Results are further discussed in terms of the various simulated turbulent parameters.
We describe the current status of the ELP-OA project in which we try to demonstrate in practice that it is possible to measure the tilt of a wave front using only a polychromatic laser guide star and no natural guide star. The first phase of ELP-OA, consisting of feasibility experiments, has recently been completed successfully. This paper provides an overview over the results of this first phase and over the continuation of the ELP-OA project.
Adaptive optics at astronomical telescopes aims at correcting in real time the phase corrugations of incoming wavefronts caused by the turbulent atmosphere, as early proposed by Babcock. Measuring the phase errors requires a bright source located within the isoplanatic patch of the program source. The probability that such a reference source exists is a function of the wavelength, of the required image quality (Strehl ratio), of the turbulence optical properties, and of the direction of the observation. It turns out that the sky coverage is disastrously low in particular in the visible wavelength range where, unfortunately, the gain in spatial resolution brought by adaptive optics is the largest. Foy and Labeyrie have proposed to overcome this difficulty by creating an artificial point source in the sky in the direction of the observation relying on the backscattered light due to a laser beam. This laser guide star (hereinafter referred to as LGS) can be bright enough to allow us to accurately measure the wavefront phase errors, except for two modes which are the piston (not relevant in this case) and the tilt. Pilkington has emphasized that the round trip time of the laser beam to the mesosphere, where the LGS is most often formed, is significantly shorter than the typical tilt coherence time; then the inverse-return-of-light principle causes deflections of the outgoing and the ingoing beams to cancel. The apparent direction of the LGS is independent of the tilt. Therefore the tilt cannot be measured only from the LGS. Until now, the way to overcome this difficulty has been to use a natural guide star to sense the tilt. Although the tilt is sensed through the entire telescope pupil, one cannot use a faint source because $APEX 90% of the variance of the phase error is in the tilt. Therefore, correcting the tilt requires a higher accuracy of the measurements than for higher orders of the wavefront. Hence current adaptive optics devices coupled with a LGS face low sky coverage. Several methods have been proposed to get a partial sky coverage for the tilt. The only one providing us with a full sky coverage is the polychromatic LGS (hereafter referred to as PLGS). We present here a progress report of the R&D program Etoile Laser Polychromatique et Optique Adaptative (ELP-OA) carried out in France to develop the PLGS concept. After a short recall of the principles of the PLGS, we will review the goal of ELP-OA and the steps to get over to bring it into play. We finally shortly described the effort in Europe to develop the LGS.
Adaptive optics at astronomical telescopes aims at correcting in real time the phase corrugations of incoming wavefronts caused by the turbulent atmosphere, as early proposed by Babcock. Measuring the phase errors requires a bright source, which is located within the isoplanatic patch of the program source. The probability that such a reference source exists is a function of the wavelength of the observation, of the required image quality (Strehl ratio), of the turbulence optical properties, and of the direction of the observation. Several papers have addressed the problem of the sky coverage as a function of these parameters (see e.g.: Le Louarn et al). It turns out that the sky coverage is disastrously low in particular in the short (visible) wavelength range where, unfortunately, the gain in spatial resolution brought by adaptive optics is the largest. Foy and Labeyrie have proposed to overcome this difficulty by creating an artificial point source in the sky in the direction of the observation relying on the backscattered light due to a laser beam. This laser guide star (hereafter referred to as LGS) can be bright enough to allow us to accurately measure the wavefront phase errors, except for two modes which are the piston (which is not relevant in this case) and the tilt. Pilkington has emphasized that the round trip time of the laser beam to the mesosphere, where the LGS is most often formed, is significantly shorter than the typical tilt coherence time; then the inverse-return- of-light principle causes deflections of the outgoing and the ingoing beams to cancel. The apparent direction of the LGS is independent of the tilt. Therefore the tilt cannot be measured only from the LGS. Until now, the way to overcome this difficulty has been to use a natural guide star to sense the tilt. Although the tilt is sensed through the entire telescope pupil, one cannot use a faint source because approximately equals 90% of the variance of the phase error is in the tilt. Therefore, correcting the tilt requires a higher accuracy of the measurements than for higher orders of the wavefront. Hence current adaptive optics devices coupled with a LGS face low sky coverage. Several methods have been proposed to get a partial or total sky coverage for the tilt, such as the dual adaptive optics concept, the elongation perspective method, or the polychromatic LGS (hereafter referred to as PLGS). We present here a progress report of the R&D program Etoile Laser Polychromatique et Optique Adaptative (ELP-OA) carried out in France to develop the PLGS concept. After a short recall of the principles of the PLGS, we will review the goal of ELP-OA and the steps to get over to bring it into play.
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