Control of Giant Multi-Segmented Telescopes

智能价值建造巨型望远镜的大多数概念都是基于将现有望远镜的设计扩展到更大的尺寸。例如，30米望远镜(TMT)和巨型麦哲伦望远镜(GMT)就是基于Keck设计和旋转铸造炉技术。虽然这两种方法都是基于1980年S的成熟技术，但这些设计都带来了高昂的成本，因为当缩放到30米口径时，需要大量的工程投资；主镜本身预计在风和重力偏转的情况下具有良好到数十纳米的表面轮廓，然后必须通过放置在主镜和具有数千个致动器的探测器之间的自适应光学(AO)系统来校正大气湍流。另一种方法是使用几千个数量级的较小段，这些段以较高的带宽进行控制，以消除主镜上的大气湍流和风抖的影响。这将以极低的成本生产出高性能的望远镜。拟议的研究计划解决主镜反射面的控制，这是ATLAS设计的主要技术挑战。这项工作计划对调查人员产生影响吗？关于应用最近开发的分布式控制技术的初步工作，以及在他们的实验试验台上充分验证他们的控制方法。更广泛的影响这项工作将对未来的天文和科学发现技术产生影响。它将使天文学家建造大型望远镜成为可能。此外，这一努力的主要教育影响将是：(I)开发讨论控制大型望远镜系统的系统方法的课程和教材。(2)在伊利诺伊大学维护一个网页，用于在ATLAS小组成员以及包括阿贡国家实验室在内的更广泛的科学和研究界传播新的成果。

Intellectual MeritMost concepts to build giant telescopes are based on extending the design of existing telescopes to larger sizes. For example, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) are based on the Keck design and on spin casting furnace technology. While both approaches are based on the proven technology of the 1980?s, these designs come with a high price tag because substantial engineering investments are required when scaling to a 30-m aperture; the primary mirror itself is expected to have a surface figure good to tens of nanometer in the presence of wind and gravitational deflections and the atmospheric turbulence must then be corrected by an adaptive optics (AO) system placed between the primary mirror and detector operating with many thousand actuators. An alternative approach is to use smaller segments, of the order of a few thousands, that are controlled at higher bandwidths to remove the effects of atmospheric turbulence and windshake at the primary mirror. This will produce a high performance telescope at significantly lower cost. The proposed research plans to address the control of the reflective surface of the primary mirror, a major technological challenge of ATLAS design. This work plans to leverage on the investigators? preliminary work on the application of recently developed distributed control techniques, and on their experimental test rigs to fully validate their control approach. Broader ImpactThis work will have implications to future astronomical and scientific discovery technologies. It will enable the building the construction of large telescopes by astronomers. In addition, the main educational impact of this effort will be in terms of (i) Developing courses and educational materials that discuss systematic approaches for control of large telescopic systems. (ii) Maintaining a Web-page at the University of Illinois which will be used to disseminate new results within the members of the ATLAS team as well as to the broader scientific and research community, including Argonne National Laboratories.