Colleagues:

It all began with the “Optical Analog,” OA for short. 

OA is what I’ve called my method for modeling the optical point spread function (PSF) in Nastran structural models of optical systems.  I started simple, modeling an axial chief ray and calculating its motion in object and image spaces when I tweek the structure with forces, displacements or thermal gradients. 

After a few successes it became clear that there was a lot more to be learned by modeling multiple optical rays through the system.  Their motions on the focal plane array would not only indicate image motions but also changes to the PSF (and therefore the OTF, a measure of image quality).

A typical application of the OA was to determine the optical effects caused by residual plastic strains in a light weight metallic primary mirror.  The plastic strains were caused by a sudden shock load.  The figure shows two views of the solution. 

The right side shows a 20 degree sector of the primary mirror model with 44 optical rays reflecting from it.  The mirror had 18 such sectors and the problem was axisymmetric.  The left side of the figure shows the results at the center detector of the FPA (blown-up about 5,000 fold).  The black dashed line shows the size of the geometric PSF before the shock load and the red dashed line shows the geometric PSF after the shock load.  The project had a strict requirement for “ensquared energy” on the detectors and I thinned-out the face sheet and webs until the results were just within the specification.

I wrote Ebony, a computer program, to assist in assembling structural models for OA analyses.  It’s one of my optomechanical modeling tools that I use to help guide mechanical designs.  I tend to put them to work in the early days of a project, while the concepts are malleable.  They’re also useful in “Red Team” assignments to find out, after-the-fact, what went wrong and what it takes to fix it.  AEH/Ebony unifies and couples the PSF to all of the structure in the Nastran model.

If you’re waiting for the beginning of Summer, some good news.  You have only eight months to go!

All Hallow Even comes first, of course.

Joy and good health to all.

Al Hatheway
10-21-13