Woofer-Tweeter Adaptive Optics Test Bench

This paper describes the status of a Woofer-Tweeter (W/T) adaptive optics (AO) test bench that is developed at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada. The purpose of the UVic W/T AO bench with regards to the thirty meter telescope (TMT) project, the description of the W/T AO bench components, the hot air turbulence generator, the working principle and performance estimates from the system model of the W/T AO system are presented. The research concept of having dual deformable mirrors (DM) allows the W/T AO system to have a high degree of correction over a large amplitude wavefront distortion. The role of the UVic AO bench is to demonstrate the closed-loop wavefront control feasibility for a W/T AO concept to be used on the science instruments of the TMT