Control synthesis of an optical chain for an exoplanet imaging space mission

Description

Develop a control strategy for high-contrast imaging of exoplanets using an optical chain with deformable mirrors. The first part of the project will be to determine the right coronagraphy architecture that makes maximum use of the advantages of a space-based mission (super stable and 'quiet' environment), is able to reach the required specifications for the detection and characterization of a 'earth-twin' exoplanet while also putting a strong emphasize on simplicity, extremely reliable components and energy efficiency.

The theoretical work involves the conceptual development of a coronagraph instrument for a future ESA exoplanet mission. Pros and cons of different coronagraph integrated with different control strategies will be weighted in order to choose the most appropriate one for a future mission. Then, for the final control synthesis for speckle nulling using deformable mirrors, the work builds on earlier works on various distributed control methods for networked systems which have been done in the group of prof. dr. B. Jayawardhana and prof. dr. ir. J.M.A. Scherpen. The control strategy will be tested and verified on a high contrast imaging testbed.