PHASED ARRAY IMAGING IN PARTIALLY COHERENT LIGHT

THE COMBINED REQUIREMENTS FOR HIGH SPATIAL RESOLUTION AND HIGH SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO HAVE LED MANY RECENT TRACKING SYSTEMS ANALYSTS TO CONSIDERACTIVE TRACKERS IMPLEMENTED WITH PHASED ARRAY OPTICS. THE PHASED ARRAY OVERCOMES THE TECHNOLOGY LIMITS ON APERTURE SIZE WHILE THE LASER SOURCES PROVIDE A DETECTABLE TARGET RETURN. THE PHASED ARRAY IMAGER HAS BEEN MODELLED FOR BOTH NON-COHERENT AND FULLY COHERENT CASES. THE ACTUAL TARGET RETURN, HOWEVER, WILL BE THE INTERMEDIATE, PARTIALLY COHERENT CASE. THIS PROPOSAL WILL EXTEND OUR PREVIOUS WORK IN COHERENT AND NON-COHERENT IMAGING WITH PHSED ARRAYS TO INCLUDE A THEORETICAL MODEL FOR THE PARTIALLY COHERENT CASE, INCLUDING BOTH GLOBAL AND LOCAL (SUBAPERTURE) ABERRATIONS. THE MODEL WILL BE IMPLEMENTED IN AN IMAGING ANALYSIS SOFTWARE SYSTEM AND INITIAL PARAMETER SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS PERFORMED. COMPARISON OF THE NON-COHERENT, COHERENT, AND PARTIALLY COHERENT CASES WILL BE MADE.