A Multiplatform CPU-Based Architecture for Cost-Effective Adaptive Optics Systems

Abstract

An adaptive optics (AO) system is composed of three key elements: a wave-front sensor (WFS) that detects the aberrations, a deformable mirror (DM) that provides the wavefront correction, and a closed-loop control system that elaborates the measurements acquired by the sensor and sends commands to the mirror. The control system can be implemented on a dedicated platform (e.g., field programmable gate array) or on general-purpose platforms (e.g., central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit). Dedicated hardware guarantees high performance but needs more development time and programming skills than general-purpose hardware, leading to a less maintainable system for the end user. The proposed solution aims to be a cost-effective multiplatform CPU-based flexible framework. The software, developed in C++ and using Eigen and Qt libraries, provides the tools to tune and control the AO system from wavefront measurement settings to controller parameters. A logging feature allows in-depth offline data analysis, while scripting enables execution of batch experiments. The AO system is tuned and evaluated by interfacing the WFS and DM with our software architecture. The results show that the proposed solution is able to correct the aberrations of a low- to medium-size single conjugate AO system, with a control frequency up to $\text{500}\,{\text{Hz}}$ and computational latency of $\text{40}\,\mu {\text{s}}$ , using a consumer-grade notebook.