MEMs adaptive optics for horizontal turbulence correction

For the past decade our group has been involved in the development and test of small portable Adaptive Optics (AO) systems based on MEMs Deformable Mirrors (DM) technology. The main trust of this activity was toward what is usually referred as vertical propagation of the light that is the common situation for astronomical applications. However, in the past couple of years our efforts have been towards the correction of horizontal path imagery. In this regime the atmospheric turbulence presents different types of problems such to make the development of AO systems much more demanding. Once again one of the starting points for us is the development of a test bed where AO components and algorithms can be tested under well controlled conditions.