Accession Number:

ADA581865

Title:

Pointing and Jitter Control for the USNA Multi-Beam Combining System

Descriptive Note:

Trident Scholar Project rept. no. 419

Corporate Author:

NAVAL ACADEMY ANNAPOLIS MD

Personal Author(s):

• Patrick, Zachary M.

Report Date:

2013-05-10

Pagination or Media Count:

95.0

Abstract:

The ability to accurately combine energy from multiple low power beams on a specific target is critical to making directed energy weapons effective and practical. At the United States Naval Academy Directed Energy Research Center, a project is underway to develop a three beam combining system that employs fast steering mirrors FSMs for pointing and jitter control of individual beams. In the previous work, an adaptive H-infinity optimal controller has been developed to control a single beam using a beam position detector for feedback. This project will apply the H-infinity adaptive controller and other controllers to the multiple-beam combining system in a multiple-input, multiple-output feedback control environment. Instead of using a position detector, a high-speed video camera will be employed to provide centroid estimation and feedback for pointing control algorithms.

Descriptors:

• *CONTROL
• *LASER BEAMS
• AIMING
• CONTROL THEORY
• DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS
• JITTER
• MIRRORS

Subject Categories:

• Directed Energy Weapons

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE