Dwell time algorithm for multi-mode optimization in manufacturing large optical mirrors

Abstract

CCOS (Computer Controlled Optical Surfacing) is one of the most important method to manufacture optical surface. By controlling the dwell time of a polishing tool on the mirror we can get the desired material removal. As the optical surface becoming larger, traditional CCOS method can’t meet the demand that manufacturing the mirror in higher efficiency and precision. This paper presents a new method using multi-mode optimization. By calculate the dwell time map of different tool in one optimization cycle, the larger tool and the small one have complementary advantages and obtain a global optimization for multi tool and multi-processing cycles. To calculate the dwell time of different tool at the same time we use multi-mode dwell time algorithm that based on matrix calculation. With this algorithm we did simulation experiment, the result shows using multi-mode optimization algorithm can improve the efficiency maintaining good precision.