Special Section Guest Editorial: Aero-Optics and Adaptive Optics for Aero-Optics

Numerical Methods in Aero-optics

Adaptive Laser Compensation for Aero-Optics and Atmospheric Disturbances

Performance of adaptive optics (AO) compensation for beam control is quantified via wave-optical propagation, sensing, and control methods using wind tunnel measurements of aero-optical disturbances in addition to Kolmogorov turbulence distributed over a laser path. For Kolmogorov turbulence the residual phase variance scales as (fG/f3dB) , where fG is the Greenwood frequency for the propagatio...

Fluid dynamics and aero-optics of turrets

A summary of research efforts for last several years on fluid-dynamics and aero-optics of hemisphereon-cylinder turrets with flat and conformal windows is presented. The topology of flow behind turrets and both steady and unsteady sources of optical distortions are discussed. Scaling laws for levels of optical aberrations are proposed and results of several experimental studies are compared and...

Physics and Computation of Aero-Optics

This article provides a critical review of aero-optics with an emphasis on recent developments in computational predictions and the physical mechanisms of flow-induced optical distortions. Following a brief introduction of the fundamental theory and key concepts, computational techniques for aberrating flow fields and optical propagation are discussed along with a brief survey Annu. Rev. Fluid ...

The Airborne Aero-Optics Laboratory, Recent Data

In this paper recent in-flight aero-optical measurements on the Airborne Aero-Optics Laboratory (AAOL) will be given. Instrumentation and experimental set-up will be presented. Results of an extensive survey of the aero-optical environment at different viewing angles for both flat-window and conformal-window turrets at different subsonic and low transonic speeds, below M = 0.65, will be present...