Laser beam pointing and stabilization by intensity feedback control

This paper presents an investigation of the control problem of aiming a laser beam under dynamic disturbances, using light intensity for feedback. The beam is steered with a bi-axial MEMS mirror, which is driven by a control signal generated by processing the beam intensity sensed by a single photod...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2009 American Control Conference pp. 2837 - 2842
Main Authors Perez-Arancibia, N.O., Gibson, J.S., Tsu-Chin Tsao
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.06.2009
Subjects
Control systems
Feedback control
Laser beams
Laser feedback
Laser stability
Nonlinear optics
Optical control
Optical feedback
Optical filters
Optical sensors
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Summary:This paper presents an investigation of the control problem of aiming a laser beam under dynamic disturbances, using light intensity for feedback. The beam is steered with a bi-axial MEMS mirror, which is driven by a control signal generated by processing the beam intensity sensed by a single photodiode. Since the pointing location of the beam is assumed to be not available for real-time control, a static nonlinear mapping from the two-dimensional beam location to the sensor measurement is estimated with the use of the least-squares algorithm, using data from an optical position sensor (OPS). The previous formulation results in a state-space system model with a nonlinear output function. The controller design problem is addressed with the integration of an extended Kalman filter (EKF) and a pair of linear time-invariant (LTI) single-input/single-output (SISO) controllers into one system. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, experimental results of a case relevant to free-space optics for communications and directed energy applications is presented here.
ISBN:142444523X
9781424445233
ISSN:0743-1619
DOI:10.1109/ACC.2009.5160679