Recent work by Oberti+22 argued and showed that classical astronomical adaptive-optics tomography performance can be further improved by carefully designing and configuring the system to encompass and exploit any built-in super-resolution (SR) capabilities.
Our goal now is to further materialise the concept by outlining the key models to compute SR-enabling tomographic reconstructors for AO.
For that we assume the form of a review paper where we (i) clarify how model-and-deploy static reconstructors arise naturally from the solution of the inverse problem and how to make them cope with closed-loop systems, (ii) how this solution is obtained as a limiting-case of a properly-conceived optimal stochastic control problem, (iii) review the two forms of the minimum-mean-squared-error (MMSE) tomographic reconstructors, highlighting the necessary adaptations to accommodate super-resolution, (iii) review the implementation in either dense-format vector-matrix-multiplication or sparse iterative forms and (iv) discuss the implications for runtime and off-line real-time implementations.
We illustrate our examples with simulations/on-sky results when possible for 10m and 40m-scale systems.
The first scientific observations with adaptive optics (AO) at W. M. Keck Observatory (WMKO) began in 1999. Through 2023, over 1200 refereed science papers have been published using data from the WMKO AO systems. The scientific competitiveness of AO at WMKO has been maintained through a continuous series of AO and instrument upgrades and additions. This tradition continues with AO being a centerpiece of WMKO’s scientific strategic plan for 2035. We will provide an overview of the current and planned AO projects from the context of this strategic plan. The current projects include implementation of new real-time controllers, the KAPA laser tomography system and the HAKA high-order deformable mirror system, the development of multiple advanced wavefront sensing and control techniques, the ORCAS space-based guide star project, and three new AO science instruments. We will also summarize steps toward the future strategic directions which are centered on ground-layer, visible and high-contrast AO.
The Real Time Controllers (RTCs) for the W. M. Keck Observatory Adaptive Optics (AO) systems have been upgraded from a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) based solution. The previous RTCs, operating since 2007, had reached their limitations after upgrades to support new hardware including an Infra-Red (IR) Tip/Tilt (TT) Wave Front Sensor (WFS) on Keck I and a Pyramid WFS on Keck II. The new RTC, fabricated by a Microgate-led consortium with SUT leading the computation engine development, provides a flexible platform that improves processing bandwidth and allows for easier integration with new hardware and control algorithms. Along with the new GPU-based RTC, the upgrade includes a new hardware Interface Module (IM), new OCAM2K EMCCD cameras, and a new Telemetry Recording Server (TRS). The first system upgrade to take advantage of the new RTC is the Keck I All-sky Precision Adaptive Optics (KAPA) Laser Tomography AO (LTAO) system, which uses the larger and more sensitive OCAM2K EMCCD camera, tomographic reconstruction from four Laser Guide Stars (LGS), and improvements to the IR TT WFS. On Keck II the new RTC will enable a new higher-order Deformable Mirror (DM) as part of the HAKA (High order Advanced Keck Adaptive optics) project, which will also use an EMCCD camera. In the future, the new RTC will allow the possibility for new developments such as the proposed ‘IWA (Infrared Wavefront sensor Adaptive optics) system. The new RTC saw first light in 2021. The Keck I system was released for science observations in late 2023, with the Keck II system released for science in early 2024.
We calculate an optical distortion solution for the OSIRIS Imager on the Keck I telescope, by matching observations of globular clusters to a Hubble reference catalogue. This solution can be applied to correct astrometric distortions in OSIRIS frames, improving the astrometric accuracy of observations. We model the distortion with a 5th order Legendre polynomial. The distortion we find matches the expected OSIRIS distortion, and has a fit error of 0.6 mas, but has large residuals of 7 mas. We are currently iterating on an improved reference frame to improve the residual. Additionally, we have installed the Precision Calibration Unit (PCU) on the Keck I optical bench, which will generates an artificial grid of stars for use in future distortion calculations.
The W. M. Keck Observatory Adaptive Optics (AO) facilities have been operating with a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based real time controller (RTC) since 2007. The RTC inputs data from various AO wavefront and tip/tilt sensors; and corrects image blurring from atmospheric turbulence via deformable and tip/tilt mirrors. Since its commissioning, the Keck I and Keck II RTCs have been upgraded to support new hardware such as pyramid wavefront and infrared tip-tilt sensors. However, they are reaching the limits of their capabilities in terms of processing bandwidth and the ability to interface with new hardware. Together with the Keck All-sky Precision Adaptive optics (KAPA) project, a higher performance and a more reliable RTC is needed to support next generation capabilities such as laser tomography and sensor fusion. This paper provides an overview of the new RTC system, developed with our contractor/collaborators (Microgate, Swinburne University of Technology and Australian National University), and the initial on-sky performance. The upgrade includes an Interface Module to interface with the wavefront sensors and controlled hardware, and a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) based computational engine to meet the system’s control requirements and to provide a flexible software architecture to allow future algorithms development and capabilities. The system saw first light in 2021 and is being commissioned in 2022 to support single conjugate laser guide star (LGS) AO, along with a more sensitive EMCCD camera. Initial results are provided to demonstrate single NGS & LGS performance, system reliability, and the planned upgrade for four LGS to support laser tomography.
We present the status and plans for the Keck All sky Precision Adaptive optics (KAPA) program. KAPA includes (1) an upgrade to the Keck I laser guide star adaptive optics (AO) facility to improve image quality and sky coverage, (2) the inclusion of AO telemetry-based point spread function estimates with all science exposures, (3) four key science programs, and (4) an educational component focused on broadening the participation of women and underrepresented groups in instrumentation. For this conference we focus on the KAPA upgrades since the 2020 SPIE proceedings1 including implementation of a laser asterism generator, wavefront sensor, real-time controller, asterism and turbulence simulators, the laser tomography system itself along with new operations software and science tools, and modifications to an existing near-infrared tip-tilt sensor to support multiple natural guide star and focus measurements. We will also report on the results of daytime and on-sky calibrations and testing.
The Keck All-Sky Precision Adaptive Optics (KAPA) system project will upgrade the Keck I AO system to enable laser tomography with a four laser guide star (LGS) asterism. This paper describes the new infrastructure which is being built for daytime calibration and testing of the KAPA tomographic algorithms.
Since the start of science operations in 1993, the twin 10-meter W. M. Keck Observatory (WMKO) telescopes have continued to maximize their scientific impact and to produce transformative discoveries that keep the observing community on the frontiers of astronomical research. Upgraded capabilities and new instrumentation are provided though collaborative partnerships with Caltech, the University of California, and the University of Hawaii instrument development teams, as well as industry and other organizations. This paper summarizes the performance of recently commissioned infrastructure projects, technology upgrades, and new additions to the suite of observatory instrumentation. We also provide a status of projects currently in design or development phases and, since we keep our eye on the future, summarize projects in exploratory phases that originate from our 2022 strategic plan developed in collaboration with our science community to adapt and respond to evolving science needs.
Fast Fourier transform-based phase screen simulations give accurate results only when the screen size (G) is much larger than the outer scale parameter (L0). Otherwise, they fall short in correctly predicting both the low and high frequency behaviors of turbulence-induced phase distortions. Subharmonic compensation is a commonly used technique that aids in low-frequency correction but does not solve the problem for all values of screen size to outer scale parameter ratios (G / L0). A subharmonics-based approach will lead to unequal sampling or weights calculation for subharmonics addition at the low-frequency range and patch normalization factor. We have modified the subharmonics-based approach by introducing a Gaussian phase autocorrelation matrix that compensates for these shortfalls. We show that the maximum relative error in structure function with respect to theoretical value is as small as 0.5% to 3% for (G / L0) ratio of 1/1000 even for screen sizes up to 100 m diameter.
We present the status and plans for the Keck All sky Precision Adaptive optics (KAPA) program. KAPA includes four key science programs, an upgrade to the Keck I laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) facility to improve image quality and sky coverage, AO telemetry based point spread function (PSF) estimates for all science exposures, and an educational component focused on broadening the participation of women and underrepresented groups in instrumentation. For the purpose of this conference we will focus on the AO facility upgrade which includes implementation of a new laser, wavefront sensor and real-time controller to support laser tomography, the laser tomography system itself, and modifications to an existing near-infrared tip-tilt sensor to support multiple natural guide star (NGS) and focus measurements.
Accurately simulating the atmospheric turbulence behaviour is always challenging. The well-known FFT based method falls short in correctly predicting both the low and high frequency behaviours. Sub-harmonic compensation aids in low-frequency correction but does not solve the problem for all screen size to outer scale parameter ratios (G/L0). FFT-based simulation gives accurate result only for relatively large screen size to outer scale parameter ratio (G/L0). In this work, we have introduced a Gaussian phase autocorrelation matrix to compensate for any sort of residual errors after applying for a modified subharmonics compensation. With this, we have solved problems such as under sampling at the high-frequency range, unequal sampling/weights for subharmonics addition at low-frequency range and the patch normalization factor. Our approach reduces the maximum error in phase structure-function in the simulation with respect to theoretical prediction to within 1.8%, G/L0 = 1/1000.
The next generation of adaptive optics (AO) systems on large telescopes will require immense computation performance and memory bandwidth, both of which are challenging with the technology available today. The objective of this work is to create a future-proof AO platform on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) architecture, which scales with the number of subapertures, pixels per subaperture, and external memory. We have created a scalable AO platform with an off-the-shelf FPGA development board, which provides an AO reconstruction time only limited by the external memory bandwidth. SPARC uses the same logic resources irrespective of the number of subapertures in the AO system. This paper is aimed at embedded developers who are interested in the FPGA design and the accompanying hardware interfaces. The central theme of this paper is to show how scalability is incorporated at different levels of the FPGA implementation. This work is a continuation of part 1 of the paper, which explains the concept, objectives, control scheme, and method of validation used for testing the platform.
We demonstrate an architecture for adaptive optics (AO) control based on field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), making active use of their configurable parallel processing capability. The unique capabilities of scalable platform for adaptive optics real-time control (SPARC) are demonstrated through an implementation on an off-the-shelf inexpensive Xilinx VC-709 development board. The architecture makes SPARC a generic and powerful real-time control kernel for a broad spectrum of AO scenarios. SPARC is scalable across different numbers of subapertures and pixels per subaperture. The overall concept, objectives, architecture, validation, and results from simulation as well as hardware tests are presented here. For Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensors, the total AO reconstruction time ranges from a median of 39.4 μs (11 × 11 subapertures) to 1.283 ms (50 × 50 subapertures) on the development board. For large wavefront sensors, the latency is dominated by access time (∼1 ms) of the standard dual data rate memory available on the board. This paper is divided into two parts. Part 1 is targeted at astronomers interested in the capability of the current hardware. Part 2 explains the FPGA implementation of the wavefront processing unit, the reconstruction algorithm, and the hardware interfaces of the platform. Part 2 mainly targets the embedded developers interested in the hardware implementation of SPARC.
The main objective of the present project is to explore the viability of an adaptive optics control system based exclusively on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), making strong use of their parallel processing capability. In an Adaptive Optics (AO) system, the generation of the Deformable Mirror (DM) control voltages from the Wavefront Sensor (WFS) measurements is usually through the multiplication of the wavefront slopes with a predetermined reconstructor matrix. The ability to access several hundred hard multipliers and memories concurrently in an FPGA allows performance far beyond that of a modern CPU or GPU for tasks with a well-defined structure such as Adaptive Optics control. The target of the current project is to generate a signal for a real time wavefront correction, from the signals coming from a Wavefront Sensor, wherein the system would be flexible to accommodate all the current Wavefront Sensing techniques and also the different methods which are used for wavefront compensation. The system should also accommodate for different data transmission protocols (like Ethernet, USB, IEEE 1394 etc.) for transmitting data to and from the FPGA device, thus providing a more flexible platform for Adaptive Optics control. Preliminary simulation results for the formulation of the platform, and a design of a fully scalable slope computer is presented.
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