Authors

K. El Hadi, B. LeRoux, M. NDiaye

Affiliations

Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM)

Abstract

We are developing an Adaptive Optics bench designed to validate experimentally new instrumental concepts dedicated to Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs). Our AO bench is being developed with three main objectives. The first one concerns the experimental study of control solutions for two levels of correction systems, such as woofer-tweeter systems. Indeed, the use of two consecutive deformable mirrors (DM), necessary for most of AO insruments on E-ELT, rises correction and command problems to be optimized. Our two mirrors (a 140 actuators DM and a Phase Modulator LCoS mirror) are being fully characterized before closing the AO loop. The second goal is the experimental validation of the Pyramid Wave Front Sensor (PWFS) in ELTs conditions with a Laser Guide Star (LGS). The design of our PWFS is undergoing and the LGS tests will take place by the end of 2013. All these studies are led in collaboration with University of Bologna, ONERA and L2TI. The third and longer term application is the experimental validation of an optimized control law dedicated to the large number of degrees of freedom, based on Kalman filtering and studied at LAM. We present the optical design of the bench, the calibrations of the elements and the first experimental results.