• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.79-84
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• 2012

After a visit by Peter Waddell from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK in 1991, Robert H. Koch launched a program at the University of Pennsylvania to build lightweight pneumatic membrane mirrors, initially for balloon flight observations where weight is at a premium. Mirror cells were fabricated from sizes 0.18 m to 1.77 m, and experiments conducted to characterize the mirror figure and stability. Most of the work stopped after Prof. Koch's retirement in 1996 until 2006 when the authors expressed an interest in building an array of medium-aperture portable telescopes. The program restarted in earnest at Gravic, Inc. in Malvern, PA in 2008 with Koch using his extensive observational astronomy experience to guide the fabrication of a fully operational 1.07 m membrane mirror telescope with an optical tube assembly weighing under 45 Kg. Residual wavefront aberrations remediation resulted in Koch and the authors investigating membrane tensioning techniques with different cell designs, active secondary wavefront correction, photometric algorithms for aberrated images, and the use of additional lightweight mirror substrates from the Alt-Az Initiative Group, such as foamed glass. The best result for the lightweight mirrors was a point spread function spot size of several arc seconds. A lightweight 1.6 m cast aluminum cell alt-az telescope was subsequently designed by Koch and the authors for prime focus use.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.817-819
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• 2007

A low-stress organic polymer membrane is proposed as a deformable mirror that can be incorporated into a cellular phone camera to achieve auto focusing without motor-type moving parts. It is demonstrated that our fabricated device has an optical power of 20 diopters and can switch focus in 14 ms. The surface roughness of the organic membrane is measured around 15 nm, less than ${\lambda}$/20 of the visible light. With curve fitting, we found that the actuated membrane is almost parabolic in shape, which leads to less aberration than spherical surfaces. It is suitable for reflective-optics systems.

• Broadcasting and Media Magazine
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.84-101
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• 2001

In this paper, we present a primitive system design of a super multi-view(SMV) 3-D display system based on a focused light array(FLA) concept using reflective vibrating scanner array(ViSA). The parallel beam scanning using a vibrating scanner array is performed by moving left and right an array of curvature-compensated mirrors or diamond-ruled reflective grating attached to a vibrating membrane. The parallel laser beam scanner array can replace the polygon mirror scanner which has been used in the SMV 3-D display system based on the focused light array(FLA) concept proposed by Kajiki at TAO(Telecommunications) Advancement Organization). The proposed system has great advantages in the sense that it requires neither huge imaging optics nor mechanical scanning pals. Some mathematical analyses and fundamental limitations of the proposed system are presented. The proposed vibrating scanner array, after some modifications and refinements, may replace polygon mirror-based scanners in the near future.