Subaperture Slopes, Reconstructed Wavefronts and DM Actuator Commands

The AO tools emphasize a slope-measuring WFS with discrete subapertures, such as a Hartmann-Shack device.  Since the basic data consists of a set of discrete slopes, sdata, the tools functions are mainly oriented toward producing a (linear) mapping that directly converts sdata into either a reconstructed WF dopd , or into DM actuator commands dact .  In either case, the net linear mapping will always be represented as a 2-D "reconstructor" matrix, generically denoted by R, connecting the 1-D vectors in question:

      dopd, rec = R sdata  ,   or ddact,rec = R sdata .

Regardless of the details of the reconstruction method, and of any complications due to DM faceplate influence functions, final results will always be expressed in this common format.  The reconstructor Rremains fixed, for a given WFS geometry, as the incident wavefront fluctuates in a dynamic system.  One or more R matrices are key components of the final .mat file that must be produced by the AO tools to configure a LightLike simulation that uses a DM.

In the following sections, we present several different reconstruction methods, each of which may have a number of sub-options.  In the final .mat output file created by the use the AO tools, the user may store more than one reconstructor matrix for a given WFS/DM geometry.  Later, the LightLike simulation can read whichever reconstructor variable name is desired for a particular simulation run.  If desired, the LightLike system could also split light among parallel paths, thus allowing a comparison of several reconstruction algorithms within one system and run .