PhD Scholarship Adaptive Optics for Large Telescopes, Netherlands

Adaptive optics (AO) is used in large telescopes to compensate for disturbances in the atmosphere as well as vibrations of the telescope’s optical components. With the increasing dimensions of telescopes, up to 42m for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), the dimensions of the AO systems are increasing such that the computational complexity of the controller prohibits an (unstructured) centralised implementation.

The goal of this project is to design, implement and validate a fast and high-performance control algorithm on multi-core, off-the-shelf hardware to control a large-scale adaptive optics system for application in extremely large telescopes. The PhD student will evaluate several efficient AO control algorithms, including algorithms developed at DCSC, further optimise the computational complexity versus performance trade-off, and implement and validate the method on a multi-core AO demonstrator system. The project, which is funded by the ESFRI Consortium, is a collaboration between Delft University of Technology (Delft Centre for Systems and Control) and the University of Utrecht (Astronomical Institute).

Requirements

We are looking for a candidate with an MSc / PhD degree in Physics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, or the equivalent, with a strong background in numerical algorithms for control and signal processing. Experience with parallel processing is advantageous. The candidate is expected to further develop the research on fast and high-performance adaptive optics algorithms that has been initiated at DCSC, to validate these in a laboratory demonstrator and to publish his/her research in scientific publications. If you have already earned a PhD in a field relevant to this project, you are encouraged to apply for this position as a post-doctoral researcher.

Application Deadline 1 August 2010

For further information:

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