The next generation of large, high resolution optical astronomy facilities will require order-of-magnitude advances in optical angular resolution. Conventional concepts would maintain the needed precision by use of motion and position sensors and electromechanical actuators (that impose forces or moments directly on the optical support structure) coordinated by complex feedback control laws implemented via a digital signal processor. To-date, the development path that is being contemplated for the next-generation systems would proceed by incrementally refining the conventional concepts, along fairly well defined but practically very costly stages. In contrast the present study explores an unconventional combination of (1) new nonlinear optics devices for wave-front correction, (2) optical signal processing and (3) neural network technology for optical control to obviate many of the high-cost engineering difficulties of ultrahigh resolution optics. In essence it will try to enable the design of a system that uses a (potentially large) number of independent separate apertures (each one relatively small and rigid) that combine their optical information to emulate a very large aperture device but that do this without using extremely precise relative positioning and alignment among the several subapetures. The benefits to astronomical knowledge from such facilities could include submilliarsec measurement of stellar diameter, resolution of close and interacting binaries, precise measurement of galactic and cosmic distance scales and detection of extra-solar planets.
