E-ELT active optics system modeling and performance evaluation

Abstract

In order to evaluate the telescope performance and to derive error budget and stroke allocations a ray-tracing and performance analysis toolkit was developed at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) during project Phase B. Performance estimates and individual error and stroke budget allocations are derived by analyzing the impact of a defined set of perturbations at sub - system level after propagation through a model of the wavefront control. The ray-tracing and performance analysis toolkit is used in parallel to other modeling activities such as structural, control and detailed adaptive optics modeling and provides interfaces to any of those. The ray-tracing and performance analysis toolkit consists of a set of models each suitable for analyzing sub-systems at a specific temporal and spatial frequency. The impact of quasi - static and dynamic loads is computed by implementing finite element model (FEM) and control model analysis results in optical models which either use linear optical sensitivities or ray - tracing at different levels of resolution.