@inproceedings{8d67900446e9481299f167214c17d707,
title = "Development towards an automated in-flight alignment procedure for the GigaBIT Telescope",
abstract = "The upcoming balloon-borne imaging telescope, GigaBIT, is a three-mirror anastigmat (TMA) system with a 1.35-m primary mirror designed to perform wide-field imaging with diffraction limited resolutions in the near ultraviolet (NUV) over a 0.8-deg field of view. An in-flight alignment procedure is being developed that incorporates many techniques novel to ballooning. First, coarse rigid-body adjustments are accomplished through feedback of combined laser rangefinder and retroreflector measurements between the three mirrors. Next, rigid-body adjustments are accomplished using the field-distortion estimated misalignment of each mirror. Lastly, any residual wavefront error of the entire system is compensated by a deformable primary with a set of force actuators. As every step of the procedure will be automated, significant time reduction can be achieved from hours to mere minutes, saving precious time for scientific observations. This paper details the models and simulation results involved in the steps of the procedure.",
keywords = "balloon-borne telescope, convolutional neural network, field distortion, GigaBIT, machine learning, nodal aberration theory, telescope alignment",
author = "Lun Li and {Jeremy Kasdin}, N. and Jones, {William C.} and Benton, {Steven J.}",
note = "Funding Information: The idea of aligning a wide-field telescope using a field of known star positions was first suggested by David Spergel in 2017 at the main author{\textquoteright}s PhD general exam. The optical design of the telescope was developed by Luu Vy Thuy. Thermal regulation of the SuperBIT telescope and gondola was investigated by Susan Redmond in a previous SPIE proceeding.3 The GigaBIT gondola is currently being developed at the University of Toronto. The SuperBIT experiment was developed as a collaboration between the Univeristy of Toronto, Princeton Univerity, Durham University, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The work presented in this paper is funded by the NASA-APRA grant through the main author{\textquoteright}s PhD program at Princeton University. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 SPIE.; Ground-Based and Airborne Telescopes IX 2022 ; Conference date: 17-07-2022 Through 22-07-2022",
year = "2022",
doi = "10.1117/12.2630356",
language = "English (US)",
series = "Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering",
publisher = "SPIE",
editor = "Marshall, {Heather K.} and Jason Spyromilio and Tomonori Usuda",
booktitle = "Ground-Based and Airborne Telescopes IX",
address = "United States",
}