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In the design process of large adaptive mirrors numerical simulations represent the first step to evaluate the system design compliance in terms of performance, stability and robustness. For the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes increased system dimensions and bandwidths lead to the need of modeling not only the deformable mirror alone, but also all the system supporting structure or even the full telescope. The capability to perform the simulations with an acceptable amount of time and computational resources is highly dependent on finding appropriate methods to reduce the size of the resulting dynamic models. In this paper we present a framework developed together with the company Microgate to create a reduced order structural model of a large adaptive mirror as a preprocessing step to the control system simulations. The reduced dynamic model is then combined with the remaining system components allowing to simulate the full adaptive mirror in a computationally efficient way. We analyze the feasibility of our reduced models for Microgate's prototype of the adaptive mirror of the Giant Magellan Telescope.

In this paper, we consider a new class of methods for phase unwrapping of 2D images based on digital wavefront sensors. Mathematically, many wavefront sensors produce the same measurements of incoming wavefronts regardless of whether they are wrapped or not. Since typical reconstructors for these sensors are optimized to compute smooth wavefronts, it is possible to digitally ``propagate'' a wrapped phase through such a sensor, resulting in a smooth unwrapped phase. First, we show how this principle can be applied for phase unwrapping using digital Shack-Hartmann and Fourier-type wavefront sensors. Then, we apply our methods to an unwrapping problem appearing in a real-world adaptive optics project currently under development, and compare the results to those obtained with other state-of-the-art algorithms., Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures

In the design process of large adaptive mirrors numerical simulations represent the first step to evaluate the system design compliance in terms of performance, stability and robustness. For the next generation of Extremely Large Telescopes increased system dimensions and bandwidths lead to the need of modeling not only the deformable mirror alone, but also all the system supporting structure or even the full telescope. The capability to perform the simulations with an acceptable amount of time and computational resources is highly dependent on finding appropriate methods to reduce the size of the resulting dynamic models. In this paper we present a framework developed together with the company Microgate to create a reduced order structural model of a large adaptive mirror as a preprocessing step to the control system simulations. The reduced dynamic model is then combined with the remaining system components allowing to simulate the full adaptive mirror in a computationally efficient way. We analyze the feasibility of our reduced models for Microgate's prototype of the adaptive mirror of the Giant Magellan Telescope.

In this paper, we consider the atmospheric tomography operator, which describes the effect of turbulent atmospheric layers on incoming planar wavefronts. Given wavefronts from different guide stars, measured at a telescope, the inverse problem consists in the reconstruction of the turbulence above the telescope. We show that the available data is not sufficient to reconstruct the atmosphere uniquely. Additionally, we show that classical regularization methods as Tikhonov regularization or Landweber iteration will always fail to reconstruct a physically meaningful turbulence distribution.

Atmospheric tomography, the problem of reconstructing atmospheric turbulence profiles from wavefront sensor measurements, is an integral part of many adaptive optics systems used for enhancing the image quality of ground-based telescopes. Singular-value and frame decompositions of the underlying atmospheric tomography operator can reveal useful analytical information on this inverse problem, as well as serve as the basis of efficient numerical reconstruction algorithms. In this paper, we extend existing singular value decompositions to more realistic Sobolev settings including weighted inner products, and derive an explicit representation of a frame-based (approximate) solution operator. These investigations form the basis of efficient numerical solution methods, which we analyze via numerical simulations for the challenging, real-world Adaptive Optics system of the Extremely Large Telescope using the entirely MATLAB-based simulation tool MOST., Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures

The Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics RelaY (MAORY) is one of the key Adaptive Optics (AO) systems on the European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope. MAORY aims to achieve a good wavefront correction over a large field of view, which involves a tomographic estimation of the 3D atmospheric wavefront disturbance. Mathematically, the reconstruction of turbulent layers in the atmosphere is severely ill-posed, hence, limits the achievable reconstruction accuracy. Moreover, the reconstruction has to be performed in real-time at a few hundred to one thousand Hertz frame rates. Huge amounts of data have to be processed and thousands of actuators of the deformable mirrors have to be controlled by elaborated algorithms. Even with extensive parallelization and pipelining, direct solvers, such as the Matrix Vector Multiplication (MVM) method, are extremely demanding. Thus, research in the last years shifted into the direction of iterative methods. In this paper we focus on the iterative Finite Element Wavelet Hybrid Algorithm (FEWHA). The key feature of FEWHA is a matrix-free representation of all operators involved, which makes the algorithm fast and enables on the fly system updates whenever parameters at the telescope or in the atmosphere change. We provide a performance analysis of the method regarding quality and run-time for the MAORY instrument using the AO software package COMPASS.

The Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics RelaY (MAORY) is one of the key Adaptive Optics (AO) systems on the European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope. MAORY aims to achieve a good wavefront correction over a large field of view, which involves a tomographic estimation of the 3D atmospheric wavefront disturbance. Mathematically, the reconstruction of turbulent layers in the atmosphere is severely ill-posed, hence, limits the achievable reconstruction accuracy. Moreover, the reconstruction has to be performed in real-time at a few hundred to one thousand Hertz frame rates. Huge amounts of data have to be processed and thousands of actuators of the deformable mirrors have to be controlled by elaborated algorithms. Even with extensive parallelization and pipelining, direct solvers, such as the Matrix Vector Multiplication (MVM) method, are extremely demanding. Thus, research in the last years shifted into the direction of iterative methods. In this paper we focus on the iterative Finite Element Wavelet Hybrid Algorithm (FEWHA). The key feature of FEWHA is a matrix-free representation of all operators involved, which makes the algorithm fast and enables on the fly system updates whenever parameters at the telescope or in the atmosphere change. We provide a performance analysis of the method regarding quality and run-time for the MAORY instrument using the AO software package COMPASS.

The Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics RelaY (MAORY) is one of the key Adaptive Optics (AO) systems on the European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope. MAORY aims to achieve a good wavefront correction over a large field of view, which involves a tomographic estimation of the 3D atmospheric wavefront disturbance. Mathematically, the reconstruction of turbulent layers in the atmosphere is severely ill-posed, hence, limits the achievable reconstruction accuracy. Moreover, the reconstruction has to be performed in real-time at a few hundred to one thousand Hertz frame rates. Huge amounts of data have to be processed and thousands of actuators of the deformable mirrors have to be controlled by elaborated algorithms. Even with extensive parallelization and pipelining, direct solvers, such as the Matrix Vector Multiplication (MVM) method, are extremely demanding. Thus, research in the last years shifted into the direction of iterative methods. In this paper we focus on the iterative Finite Element Wavelet Hybrid Algorithm (FEWHA). The key feature of FEWHA is a matrix-free representation of all operators involved, which makes the algorithm fast and enables on the fly system updates whenever parameters at the telescope or in the atmosphere change. We provide a performance analysis of the method regarding quality and run-time for the MAORY instrument using the AO software package COMPASS.

Atmospheric tomography, i.e. the reconstruction of the turbulence profile in the atmosphere, is a challenging task for adaptive optics (AO) systems of the next generation of extremely large telescopes. Within the community of AO the first choice solver is the so called Matrix Vector Multiplication (MVM), which directly applies the (regularized) generalized inverse of the system operator to the data. For small telescopes this approach is feasible, however, for larger systems such as the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the atmospheric tomography problem is considerably more complex and the computational efficiency becomes an issue. Iterative methods, such as the Finite Element Wavelet Hybrid Algorithm (FEWHA), are a promising alternative. FEWHA is a wavelet based reconstructor that uses the well-known iterative preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG) method as a solver. The number of floating point operations and memory usage are decreased significantly by using a matrix-free representation of the forward operator. A crucial indicator for the real-time performance are the number of PCG iterations. In this paper, we propose an augmented version of FEWHA, where the number of iterations is decreased by $50\%$ using a Krylov subspace recycling technique. We demonstrate that a parallel implementation of augmented FEWHA allows the fulfilment of the real-time requirements of the ELT.

Atmospheric tomography, i.e. the reconstruction of the turbulence profile in the atmosphere, is a challenging task for adaptive optics (AO) systems of the next generation of extremely large telescopes. Within the community of AO the first choice solver is the so called Matrix Vector Multiplication (MVM), which directly applies the (regularized) generalized inverse of the system operator to the data. For small telescopes this approach is feasible, however, for larger systems such as the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the atmospheric tomography problem is considerably more complex and the computational efficiency becomes an issue. Iterative methods, such as the Finite Element Wavelet Hybrid Algorithm (FEWHA), are a promising alternative. FEWHA is a wavelet based reconstructor that uses the well-known iterative preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG) method as a solver. The number of floating point operations and memory usage are decreased significantly by using a matrix-free representation of the forward operator. A crucial indicator for the real-time performance are the number of PCG iterations. In this paper, we propose an augmented version of FEWHA, where the number of iterations is decreased by $50\%$ using a Krylov subspace recycling technique. We demonstrate that a parallel implementation of augmented FEWHA allows the fulfilment of the real-time requirements of the ELT.

The image quality of the new generation of earthbound Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) is heavily influenced by atmospheric turbulences. To compensate these optical distortions a technique called adaptive optics (AO) is used. Many AO systems require the reconstruction of the refractive index fluctuations in the atmosphere, called atmospheric tomography. The standard way of solving this problem is the Matrix Vector Multiplication, i.e., the direct application of a (regularized) generalized inverse of the system operator. However, over the last years the telescope sizes have increased significantly and the computational efficiency become an issue. Promising alternatives are iterative methods such as the Finite Element Wavelet Hybrid Algorithm (FEWHA), which is based on wavelets. Due to its efficient matrix-free representation of the underlying operators, the number of floating point operations and memory usage decreases significantly. In this paper, we focus on performance optimization techniques, such as parallel programming models, for the implementation of this iterative method on CPUs and GPUs. We evaluate the computational performance of our optimized, parallel version of FEWHA for ELT-sized test configurations.

The image quality of the new generation of earthbound Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) is heavily influenced by atmospheric turbulences. To compensate these optical distortions a technique called adaptive optics (AO) is used. Many AO systems require the reconstruction of the refractive index fluctuations in the atmosphere, called atmospheric tomography. The standard way of solving this problem is the Matrix Vector Multiplication, i.e., the direct application of a (regularized) generalized inverse of the system operator. However, over the last years the telescope sizes have increased significantly and the computational efficiency become an issue. Promising alternatives are iterative methods such as the Finite Element Wavelet Hybrid Algorithm (FEWHA), which is based on wavelets. Due to its efficient matrix-free representation of the underlying operators, the number of floating point operations and memory usage decreases significantly. In this paper, we focus on performance optimization techniques, such as parallel programming models, for the implementation of this iterative method on CPUs and GPUs. We evaluate the computational performance of our optimized, parallel version of FEWHA for ELT-sized test configurations.