The suppression of aero-optical aberration of conformal dome by wavefront coding

The aero-optical aberration of conformal dome (AOACD) is difficult to correct and would cause serious image degradation. Wavefront coding (WFC) image technique includes the optics and the digital processing steps to achieve the final high-quality images and it can be used to control the optical aberrations. In this paper, a strategy for correcting the AOACD is presented based on WFC technology. The thermal-structure simulation results of the conformal dome are obtained by using ANSYS. The performance degradation of the conformal optical system affected by aero-optical effect is analyzed by using CODEV. Then, a typical generalized cubic phase mask is inserted into the pupil plane of the conformal optical system to suppress its aero-optical aberration. The simulation results show that (1) the image degradation is mainly caused by the refractive index distribution of the conformal dome rather than its deformation; (2) the utilization of WFC technology could suppress AOACD effectively. This work is of consequence in conformal optics and aero-optics.