Curvature Sensing-Based Pupil Alignment Method for Large-Aperture Telescopes

Abstract

In optical systems, pupil alignment is an important component of wavefront sensing, closed-loop feedback, and imaging vignetting control because it directly affects the detection limit of the system and thus the realization of scientific goals. This study proposes the use of the energy transfer characteristics of the pupil edge to determine the misalignment of each pupil. The mechanism involves decoupling the influence of each pupil from the final exit pupil energy distribution by using aperture coding without the addition of other optical paths. The degree to which the pupil is aligned is characterized by the normalized point source sensitivity (PSSn). The pupil misalignment PSSn increased from 0.75 to 0.83. The results of this study can be used to perform tomographic detection of pupil alignment and obtain high-quality telescopic images.

Keywords

• Aperture coding
• curvature sensing
• large-aperture telescope
• pupil misalignment