Control of Giant Multi-Segmented Telescopes

智力上的优点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，三十米望远镜（TMT）和巨型麦哲伦望远镜（GMT）就是基于凯克设计和旋转铸造炉技术。虽然这两种方法都是基于1980年的成熟技术？这些设计的价格很高，因为当按比例缩小到30米孔径时，需要大量的工程投资;在风和重力偏转的情况下，主反射镜本身的表面形状预计要达到几十纳米，而大气湍流必须由自适应光学系统（AO）来校正放置在主镜和探测器之间的系统，使用数千个致动器进行操作。另一种方法是使用更小的片段，数量级为几千，控制在更高的带宽，以消除大气湍流和主镜处的风振的影响。这将以低得多的成本生产出高性能的望远镜。拟议的研究计划，以解决控制的反射面的主镜，一个主要的技术挑战的ATLAS设计。这项工作计划利用调查人员？最近开发的分布式控制技术的应用的初步工作，并在他们的实验测试台，以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。它将使天文学家能够建造大型望远镜。此外，这一努力的主要教育影响将体现在：㈠编写课程和教材，讨论控制大型望远镜系统的系统方法。(ii)在伊利诺伊大学维持一个网页，用于在ATLAS小组成员中以及向更广泛的科学和研究界，包括阿贡国家实验室传播新的结果。

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.