Date of Award
12-1995
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Abstract
Current methods for estimating the wave front slope at the pupil of a telescope equipped with a Hartmann-type wave front sensor (H-WFS) are based on a simple centroid calculation of the intensity distributions (spots) recorded in each subaperture of the H-WFS. The centroid method does not include any knowledge concerning correlation properties of the slopes over the subapertures or the amount of light collected by the telescope and diverted to the H-WFS for wave front reconstruction purposes. This thesis devises a maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of the spot centroids by incorporating statistical knowledge of the spot shifts. The light level in each subaperture and the relative spot size is also employed by the shift estimator. The shift estimator is found to be unbiased and is upper bounded by the mean squared error performance exhibited by the classical centroid technique.
AFIT Designator
AFIT-GE-ENG-95D-23
DTIC Accession Number
ADA305562
Recommended Citation
Sallberg, Scott A., "Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Wave Front Slopes using a Hartmann-type Sensor" (1995). Theses and Dissertations. 6202.
https://scholar.afit.edu/etd/6202