GMCAO simulation tool development

TL;DR

This paper presents the development of a simulation tool for Global MCAO, which uses virtual deformable mirrors and layered wavefront measurements to optimize adaptive optics performance over wide fields of view.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel simulation code for Global MCAO that models virtual deformable mirrors and layered wavefront sensing, aiding in performance optimization.

Findings

Simulation results show the influence of Cn2 profiles on reconstruction quality.

The tool helps optimize the number and conjugation heights of virtual deformable mirrors.

Numerical analysis demonstrates potential improvements in sky coverage for AO systems.

Abstract

Global MCAO aims to exploit a very wide technical field of view to find AO-suitable NGSs, with the goal to increase the overall sky coverage. The concept foresees the use of numerical entities, called Virtual Deformable Mirrors, to deal with the nominally thin depth of focus reduction, due to the field of view size. These objects act together as a best fit of the atmospheric layers behavior, in a limited number of conjugation altitudes, so to become the starting point for a further optimization of the real deformable mirrors shapes for the correction of the -smaller- scientific field. We developed a simulator, which numerically combines, in a Layer-Oriented fashion, the measurements of a given number of wavefront sensors, each dedicated to one reference star, to optimize the performance in the NGSs directions. Here we describe some details of the numerical code employed in the simulator, along with the philosophy behind some of the algorithms involved, listing the main goals and assumptions. Several details, including, for instance, how the number and conjugation heights of the VDMs are chosen in the simulation code, are briefly given. Furthermore, we also discuss the possible approaches to define a merit function to optimize the best solution. Finally, after an overview of the remaining issues and limitations of the method, numerical results obtained studying the influence of Cn2 profiles on the reconstruction quality and the delivered SR in a number of fields in the sky are given.