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2 July 2019 A STEM outreach tool for demonstrating the sensing and compensation of atmospheric turbulence
Casey J. Pellizzari, Douglas E. Thornton, Connor Vikupitz, Matthew Cooper, Mark F. Spencer
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Proceedings Volume 11143, Fifteenth Conference on Education and Training in Optics and Photonics: ETOP 2019; 111431H (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2523799
Event: Fifteenth Conference on Education and Training in Optics and Photonics: ETOP 2019, 2019, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Abstract
The US Air Force (USAF) conducts research involving the sensing and compensation of atmospheric turbulence, which acts to blur images and make laser-beam propagation more challenging. As such, USAF scientists and engineers (S and Es) often face the challenging task of explaining this research to audiences without relevant technical expertise. These audiences vary widely all the way from upper military leadership down to K-12 students as part of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach activities. Previously, a team of USAF S and Es developed a table-top setup for the demonstration of digital-holography (DH) technology. This technology enables the measurement of the complex-optical field, which in turn enables a plethora of applications that involve imaging and wavefront sensing. Therefore, in this paper we extend this table-top setup to illustrate both the effects of atmospheric turbulence on the imaging and wavefront sensing process and the digital-signal processing required to estimate and mitigate these effects. The enhanced demonstration provides a visual-learning aid to help explain the complicated concepts associated with imaging through atmospheric turbulence. Specifically, we show that we can introduce aberrations into the DH system and use digital-image correction to refocus the resultant blurry images. This paper discusses the overall system design, improvements, and lessons learned.
© (2019) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
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Casey J. Pellizzari, Douglas E. Thornton, Connor Vikupitz, Matthew Cooper, and Mark F. Spencer "A STEM outreach tool for demonstrating the sensing and compensation of atmospheric turbulence", Proc. SPIE 11143, Fifteenth Conference on Education and Training in Optics and Photonics: ETOP 2019, 111431H (2 July 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2523799
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KEYWORDS
Holograms
Atmospheric turbulence
Atmospheric optics
Digital holography
Laser optics
Atmospheric propagation
Image processing
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