Abstract

The calibration of the tertiary mirror of the Thirty Meter Telescope, also known as the giant science steering mirror (GSSM), is a step of great significance during its testing process. Systematic, drift, and random errors constitute the major limitations to the accuracy of the calibration measurements. In this article, we estimated the errors in the calibration of the GSSM with a laser tracker. For the systematic error, a measurement strategy based on the standard bar method was successfully designed and applied. At the same time, we can distinguish between the drift and random errors by means of a correlation analysis. The systematic error, which depends strongly on the configuration of the system formed by the GSSM and the laser tracker, was estimated to be 20 μm for the GSSM prototype. The random error, averaging 15 min, was about 4 μm. The correlation coefficients among three different noise measurements are all lower than 0.1, which indicates that the noise is dominated by random errors. Finally, the error can be sufficiently suppressed by rearranging the position of the spherically mounted retroreflectors. The result shows that the accuracy of the measurement can be improved by 21.4% with the new arrangement method.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

Performance improvement of the Giant Steerable Science Mirror prototype: calibration, added-on damping treatment, and warping harness

Qi-chang An, Jing-xu Zhang, Fei Yang, Hong-chao Zhao, and Liang Wang
Appl. Opt. 56(36) 10009-10015 (2017)

Ritchey–Common sparse-aperture testing of the Giant Steerable Science Mirror

Qichang An, Jingxu Zhang, Fei Yang, Hongchao Zhao, and Haifeng Cao
Appl. Opt. 57(27) 7764-7769 (2018)

Relay optical function and pre-construction results of a Giant Steerable Science Mirror for a thirty meter telescope

Yang Fei, Zhang Xuejun, Zhao Hongchao, An Qichang, Guo Peng, Jiang Haibo, Cao Haifeng, Guo Pengfei, Luo Xiao, Qi Erhui, Hu Haifei, Hu Haixiang, Zhang Jing, Tomas Chylek, Glen Cole, Myung Cho, Byron Smith, and Marvin Campbell
Opt. Express 27(10) 13991-14008 (2019)

Stereo depth estimation under different camera calibration and alignment errors

Xiaofeng Ding, Lizhong Xu, Huibin Wang, Xin Wang, and Guofang Lv
Appl. Opt. 50(10) 1289-1301 (2011)

Near-zero beam drift laser tracking and measurement system with two-stage compression structures

Tianci Feng, Chengjun Cui, Jianli Li, Weihu Zhou, Guoming Wang, Dengfeng Dong, Zili Zhang, Qifan Qiu, and Shan Wang
Appl. Opt. 62(16) 4342-4348 (2023)