Most recently, I worked as a mechanical engineer on a program developing adaptive optics for space systems. My group was tasked with creating a proof of concept to demonstrate that adaptive optics could be used to improve the image quality of space telescopes.
Within the team, my role was to assemble and test an adaptive mirror assembly that could actively change the telescope’s surface curvature to control the wave pattern of incident light. The most challenging aspect of my project was creating a reliable test procedure to characterize the performance of the telescope. I installed piezoelectric actuators underneath the mirror’s surface to control the surface curvature and I mounted strain gages on top of the mirror to determine how the mechanical stress affected the mirror’s surface curvature. After creating the test procedure, I developed an autonomous test script to record the mirror’s curvature as a function of the mechanical stress.
Using this technique, I identified non-linearities between the mechanical properties of the mirror and its resulting surface curvature. My results were incorporated into a group paper, which has been accepted for oral presentation at the SPIE Smart Structures Symposia in Long Beach, CA. I look forward to sharing my work with other aerospace engineers within the scientific community.