Real-time wind speed measurement using wavefront sensor data

Abstract

Real-time measurement of effective wind speed helps in continuous monitoring of the temporal bandwidth in adaptive optics systems. In this paper, we propose a simple and efficient method for estimating wind speed from wavefront sensor data. A small portion from the center of a wavefront arriving at time 't' is mapped at all possible positions on phase screens coming later than 't' by a time n × Δtint (Δtint-integration time, n-integer) to form correlation maps. Wind speed and direction is estimated statistically via the calculation of the vectors formed by joining the central portion and the position of maximum correlation on the correlation maps. Number of such realizations to be considered to arrive at an accurate estimate of wind speed was optimized to reduce computing time and increase accuracy.