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Research Corporation Of The University Of Hawaii

$990,980

Total funding

3

Grants

Funding over time

peak $953.4K · FY2010–20

$1M$750K$500K$250K$0

'10

'11

'12

'13

'14

'15

'16

'17

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'19

'20

Funding mix

By agency

NASA$953,404 · 2

DOD$37,576 · 1

By mechanism

—$990,980 · 3

Investigators at Research Corporation Of The University Of Hawaii

Investigator-initiated All funding

Investigatorsi

Rising Stars

First grant in the last 5 yrs

Not enough data

Emerging Leaders

6–10 yrs in

Not enough data

All-Time

Most funded here, all years

Not enough data

Largest grants

TO IMAGE POTENTIALLY HABITABLE EXOPLANETS AND ACQUIRE SPECTRA OF THEIR ATMOSPHERES OR SURFACES IMAGING SYSTEMS MUST BE CAPABLE OF OPERATING AT HIGH CONTRAST WHERE CONTRAST IS DEFINED AS THE RATIO OF STELLAR BRIGHTNESS TO PLANETARY BRIGHTNESS. THE AMOUNT OF STARLIGHT DIFFRACTED INTO THE SCIENCE PIXELS CALLED STRAY LIGHT MUST BE MINIMIZED BY COMBINING CORONAGRAPHY AND WAVEFRONT CONTROL TECHNIQUES. IT CAN BE REMOVED BY ACTIVELY CONTROLLING THE DIFFRACTION PATTERN WITH A DEFORMABLE MIRROR REQUIRING ESTIMATION OF ITS AMPLITUDE AND PHASE VIA A WAVEFRONT SENSING PROCEDURE. THE FRACTION OF THE STAY LIGHT THAT CAN BE REMOVED IN THIS WAY DEPENDS ON THE EFFICIENCY OF THIS WAVEFRONT SENSING STEP. EVEN THIS PROCEDURE FOR ACTIVELY REMOVING STRAY LIGHT MAY NOT BE ADEQUATE SO BACKGROUND SUBTRACTION TECHNIQUES ARE EMPLOYED IN A POST-PROCESSING STEP THAT IDENTIFIES AND REMOVES SOME OF THE REMAINING STRAY LIGHT. THE RESULTING DETECTION LIMIT CONTRAST (THE AUGMENTED CONTRAST) MUST BE WELL BELOW THE PLANETS FLUX LEVEL. AT THE ~1E10 (STAR-TO-PLANET) FLUX-RATIO CHARACTERISTIC OF POTENTIALLY HABITABLE EXOPLANETS AROUND SUN-LIKE STARS ACHIEVING THE REQUIRED RAW AND AUGMENTED CONTRAST LEVELS IS EXTREMELY CHALLENGING. WE WILL ENHANCE WAVEFRONT ESTIMATION AND INTEGRATE IT WITH IMAGE POST-PROCESSING IMPROVING BOTH RAW AND AUGMENTED CONTRASTS. THE NEW FRAMEWORK WILL DELIVER WELL-CALIBRATED SCIENCE IMAGES UTILIZING THE PROPERTY THAT MOST OF THE STRAY LIGHT THAT CURRENTLY LIMITS DETECTIONS CAN BE RECONSTRUCTED FROM WAVEFRONT SENSING MEASUREMENTS. OUR APPROACH RELIES ON THREE RELATED TECHNIQUES: [1] COHERENT DIFFERENTIAL IMAGING (CDI) WILL IDENTIFY IN THE CORONAGRAPHIC IMAGE THE COHERENT (STARLIGHT) AND INCOHERENT (PLANET LIGHT) COMPONENTS. THE MEASUREMENT RELYING ON COHERENT MIXING WITH REFERENCE STARLIGHT WAS PREVIOUSLY DEVELOPED FOR WAVEFRONT CONTROL. WE WILL OPTIMIZE IT FOR CONTRAST AUGMENTATION AND DEVELOP THE ASSOCIATED PROCESSING ALGORITHMS. [2] PREDICTIVE CONTROL (PC) WILL OPTIMALLY COMBINE PAST WAVEFRONT MEASUREMENTS TO IMPROVE BOTH WAVEFRONT CORRECTION AND STRAY LIGHT ESTIMATION. [3] SENSOR FUSION (SF) WILL COMBINE MEASUREMENTS FROM MULTIPLE SENSORS (SUCH AS FOCAL PLANE IMAGES CORONAGRAPHIC LOW-ORDER WAVEFRONT SENSOR AND PUPIL PLANE SENSORS) TO ESTIMATE THE WAVEFRONT STATE AND THE CORRESPONDING RESIDUAL STARLIGHT IMAGE COMPONENT. TOGETHER PC AND SF WILL INCREASE THE EFFICIENCY SENSITIVITY AND RELIABILITY OF WAVEFRONT SENSING FOR HIGH CONTRAST IMAGING SPACE MISSIONS (TECHNOLOGY GAPS CG-5 CG-7) AND MITIGATE WAVEFRONT CONTROL CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH LARGE SEGMENTED APERTURES (CG-6). THE CDI APPROACH TOGETHER WITH NOISE ESTIMATION FROM PC AND SF WILL PROVIDE THE REAL-TIME IMAGE CALIBRATION MAKING USE OF STRAY LIGHT INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE WAVEFRONT SENSING TELEMETRY (CG-4). IN PARALLEL TO NUMERICAL DEVELOPMENT AND FOCUSED TESTBED EXPLORATIONS AT NASA AMES UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA AND JPL WE WILL INTEGRATE THE APPROACHES IN A COMMON FRAMEWORK ON THE SCEXAO HIGH CONTRAST TESTBED/INSTRUMENT FOR BOTH LABORATORY (DAYTIME) ANDON-SKY VALIDATION AT MODERATE CONTRAST LEVELS. THE TESTBED ALREADY PROVIDES THE SYSTEM-LEVEL ENVIRONMENT REQUIRED FOR MATURING AND VALIDATING MULTI-SENSOR ALGORITHMS AND DEMONSTRATING THEIR PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION. WAVEFRONT-SENSOR BASED POST-PROCESSING OF SCIENCE IMAGES WILL BE EXERCISED ON ON-SKY EXOPLANET OBSERVATION DATASETS FOR END-TO-END VALIDATION AT MODERATE CONTRAST. EXTRAPOLATION TO HIGHER CONTRAST ENVIRONMENTS WILL RELY ON NUMERICAL VALIDATION OF ACHIEVED RESULTS SUPPORTED BY TESTBED CALIBRATIONS. OUR EFFORT WILL BENEFIT FROM AND VALIDATE RECENT ADVANCES IN DETECTOR TECHNOLOGIES IN VISIBLE AND NEAR-IR (TECHNOLOGY GAP GC-9) AND MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES. OUR TEAM INCLUDES EXPERTS IN THESE AREAS AS WELL AS HIGH CONTRAST IMAGING AND WAVEFRONT SENSING EXPERTS.$916,541

· FY2020 · National Aeronautics and Space Administration

SUPPORT OF THE 12 INTERNATIONAL SUMPOSIUM ON "WAVE HINDCASTING & FORECASTING & COASTAL HAZARDS"$37,576

· FY2010 · Department of Defense

TO DIRECTLY IMAGE AND CHARACTERIZE EXOPLANETS STARLIGHT SUPPRESSION SYSTEMS RELY ON CORONAGRAPHS TO OPTICALLY REMOVE STARLIGHT WHILE PRESERVING PLANET LIGHT FOR SPECTROSCOPY. THE PHASE-INDUCED AMPLITUDE APODIZATION COMPLEX MASK CORONAGRAPH (PIAACMC) IS AN ATTRACTIVE CORONAGRAPH OPTION FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF LARGE SPACE TELESCOPES OPTIMIZED FOR HABITABLE EXOPLANET IMAGING: PIAACMC OFFERS HIGH THROUGHPUT SMALL INNER WORKING ANGLE (IWA) WITH LITTLE LOSS IN IMAGE QUALITY. PIAACMC IS ALSO COMPATIBLE WITH SEGMENTED APERTURES WITH LITTLE LOSS IN PERFORMANCE COMPARED TO A FULL PUPIL. CORONAGRAPH COMPATIBILITY WITH SEGMENTED APERTURE IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE SUCCESS OF HABITABLE PLANET CHARACTERIZATION WITH FUTURE LARGE APERTURES SUCH AS THE LARGE UV / OPTICAL/ INFRARED (LUVOIR) AND HABEX TELESCOPE MISSION CONCEPTS CURRENTLY UNDER WAY TO INFORM THE 2020 DECADAL SURVEY. WE PROPOSE A THREE-YEAR EFFORT AIMED AT LABORATORY VALIDATION OF THE PIAACMC CONCEPT FOR SEGMENTED APERTURES. THE EFFORT BUILDS UPON THE SUCCESSFUL DEMONSTRATION OF PIAACMC FOR THE CENTRALLY OBSCURED WFIRST PUPIL AND RE-USES NUMERICAL TOOLS TEST FACILITY AND TEAM EXPERIENCE THAT HAVE BEEN ACQUIRED DURING THIS PROCESS. OUR HIGH CONTRAST DEMONSTRATIONS WILL BE CONDUCTED AT THE HIGH CONTRAST IMAGING TESTBED (HCIT) AT JPL WITH SUPPORTING TESTING AND COMPONENT VALIDATION PERFORMED AT THE AMES CORONAGRAPH EXPERIMENT (ACE) TESTBED. AT THE END OF YEAR 2 WE WILL DEMONSTRATE MONOCHROMATIC PERFORMANCE WITH A 2 L/D IWA AND A 1E-9 RAW CONTRAST (MILESTONE #1). SIMILAR PERFORMANCE WILL THEN BE DEMONSTRATED IN A 10% WIDE SPECTRAL BAND IN YEAR 3 (MILESTONE #2). THE TEAM CONSISTING OF CORONAGRAPH EXPERTS AT NASA AMES JPL AND UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA WILL DESIGN THE PIAACMC FOR A SEGMENTED APERTURE AND PROCURE ITS KEY COMPONENTS: ASPHERIC MIRRORS AND MASKS. THE FOCAL PLANE MASK WHICH IN THE PIAACMC ARCHITECTURE DIFFRACTS STARLIGHT AWAY FROM THE GEOMETRIC PUPIL IS A CRITICAL COMPONENT OF THE CORONAGRAPH AND MULTIPLE DESIGN / FABRICATION / TESTING CYCLES WILL BE EXERCISED IN THE COURSE OF THE EFFORT. THE MASK WILL BE FABRICATED AT JPL'S MICRODEVICES LABORATORY (MDL) WITH ALTERNATIVE DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES EVALUATED IN PARALLEL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA. OUR BROADBAND 1E-9 CONTRAST DEMONSTRATION OF THE PIAACMC ARCHITECTURE ON A SEGMENTED APERTURE WILL MATURE IT FROM TECHNOLOGY READINESS LEVEL 3 TO 4 IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LUVOIR AND HABEX MISSION CONCEPTS TO BE EVALUATED IN THE 2020 DECADAL SURVEY.$36,863

· FY2020 · National Aeronautics and Space Administration