Simulation of array tilt effects in laser phased arrays

A coherent laser array can be phased through the turbulent atmosphere on target based upon the laser light scattered from that target. For some system concepts, the transmitter array tilt cannot be determined by this phasing process. The expected distribution of array tilt values is examined here for randomly phased arrays. When certain presumptions about phase are taken, as the array grows in number of elements the effect of the array tilt aberration on peak irradiance diminishes, while the pointing error remains near the diffraction limited spot size. These results have potentially important consequences for system design. They highlight the necessity of a method to handle the array tilt aberration for small systems which demand near ideal performance, while simultaneously suggesting array tilt may be ignorable for large systems or systems operating in environments where near diffraction limited performance is already unachievable due to turbulence or jitter.