Experimental Point Spread Function Imaging of Turbulent Wavefronts Using Compressive Sensing

Wavefront distortion of free-space optical beams propagating through atmospheric turbulence leads to signal fading in communications applications. The wavefront distortion can be compensated by adaptive optics, but conventional methods based on wavefront sensing may fail to ensure adequate signal coupling in typical communications scenarios. Alternative methods rely on focal plane intensity measurements. In this work, we apply computational imaging using a digital micromirror device to reconstruct the focal plane intensity image of a beam distorted by simulated atmospheric turbulence generated by a phase-only spatial light modulator. The image fidelity of the experimental focal plane images is compared to calculated point spread functions as a function of the compression ratio for undersampled images.