title: Imaging quality evaluation of aerodynamically heated optical dome using ray tracing.
abstract: An irregular grid model was employed to describe the refractive index distribution of an aerodynamically heated optical dome according to the theories of thermo-optical and elasto-optical effects. Optical transmission through the dome was simulated using the ray-tracing program based on a fourth-order Runge-Kutta algorithm. Two kinds of imaging quality evaluation parameters were presented, wave aberration of the exit pupil and a modulation transfer function. To validate the ray-tracing program, a ray trace through a regular gradient medium was performed. Results were compared with those obtained from the analytic solution. The program was shown to possess great accuracy by using the appropriate parameters.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Space Optical Engineering, P.O. Box 307, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China. xiaohaosu1985@gmail.com
authors.forename: Haosu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Zhigang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Fan