MZA has teamed with the University of Notre Dame in the development of a surrogate model for jitter estimation in optical turret designs for aircraft laser weapon systems which applies our expertise in physics modeling of aerodynamic loading, turret-optics structural dynamics analysis, optical design, and beam control systems assessment.We make use of existing optical turret wind tunnel data, along with unsteady forcing and mechanical diagnostics to substantiate the development of the surrogate jitter model.The aerodynamic loading measurements from this test will be analyzed for fundamental scaling and reduced-order representations of the impact on the turret mechanical structure.We will exercise physics modeling of mechanical structural dynamics for simplified turret hardware also tested in the wind tunnel with accompanying diagnostic measurements.Combining the loading and structural dynamics through comparisons with test data will guide development of the surrogate model.Based on these comparisons, we will design enhancements to the simplified turret hardware as a proxy to the opto-mechanical assembly of a full aircraft optical turret.This enhanced hardware will applied in Phase II wind tunnel test plans.We will also assess the feasibility of conducting flight testing in Phase II with the same hardware.aerodynamic loading,Structural Dynamics,Finite-element analysis,modal decomposition,state-space modeling,orthogonal frequency modes,optical ray-trace,Beam Control
