Smart structures for deformable mirrors actuated by shape memory alloy

Deformable mirrors actuated by smart structures are promising devices for next generation astronomical instrumentation. Thermal activated Shape Memory Alloys are materials able to recover their original shape, after an external deformation, if heated above a characteristic temperature. If the recovery of the shape is completely or partially prevented by the presence of constraints, the material can generate recovery stress. Thanks to this feature, these materials can be positively exploited in Smart Structures if properly embedded into host materials. This paper will show the technological processes developed for an efficient use of SMA-based actuators embedded in smart structures tailored to astronomical instrumentation. In particular the analysis of the interface with the host material. Some possible modeling approaches to the actuators behavior will be addressed taking into account trade-offs between detailed analysis and overall performance prediction as a function of the computational time. We developed a combined Finite Element and Raytracing analysis devoted to a parametric performance predictions of a SMA based substrate applicable to deformable mirrors. We took in detail into account the possibility to change the focal length of the mirror keeping a satisfactory image quality. Finally a possible approach with some preliminary results for an efficient control system for the strongly non-linear SMA actuators will be presented.