Optical Sensor for Precision Fast Steering Mirror Control

The overall goal of this project is to design, fabricate, test, and deliver a high bandwidth, large dynamic range optical sensor for precision fast steering mirror (FSM) control. FSMs are used in laser-based communications systems to enable the requiredhigh accuracy pointing systems that are needed because of their narrow beam divergence characteristics and vibration and jitter suppression.Relatively large diameter FSMs used in laser communications present a particularly challenging set of specifications. The mirror must be controlled with a positioning accuracy on the order of nanometers and must be capable of large angular slews requiringtotal displacements greater than 0.1 mm (or 100,000 nanometers). Further, the system must have very high bandwidth (up to 5 kHz) and be radiation tolerant. These requirements necessitate the development of new sensing technologies for use in feedbacksystems to meet the demanding specifications.Creare's Optical Sensor for Precision Fast Steering Mirror Control is a unique non-contact sensor, that can measure with: nanometer resolution; a dynamic range in excess of 100,000; a bandwidth up to 5 kHz; and radiation tolerance. During Phase I, we willdemonstrate the feasibility of our approach with a bench-top experiment. This technology would be useful for a number of space-based and airborne systems including military and commercial laser-based communications systems and military and NASA imaging satellites. Additional commercial applications include high precisionmanufacturing processes, such as photolithography and other chip-making operations.