DESIGN OF A SMALL-APERTURE STEERING MIRROR FOR HIGH-BANDWIDTH ACQUISITION AND TRACKING

The high bandwidth steering mirror (HBSM) prototype is the product of a research program established to develop a high-bandwidth, low angular range, two-dimensional beam steerer frequently found in optomechanical pointing, acquisition, and tracking systems. This research centered around the optimization of a beam-steering mechanism composed of mirror, restoring flexure, actuators, position sensors, and encompassing housing. Various design trade-offs and manufacturing issues involved in building the prototype are discussed, and the performance data are presented. The resulting HBSM design allows integration with a simple closed-loop control scheme. The mirror/controller has a closed-loop bandwidth of 10 kHz and 1° peak-to-peak stroke (mirror normal) at low frequencies. This increased bandwidth yields excellent disturbance rejection in the 10 to 1000 Hz frequency band and enables the generation of faster scan patterns.