OL-SH16P | Shack-Hartmann Optical Wavefront Sensor

The OL-SH16P is a modular Shack-Hartmann optical wavefront sensor under development for amateur and semi-professional astronomy. It is intended for atmospheric seeing characterization, optical diagnostics, aberration analysis and telescope collimation.

Development status: Development is ongoing. The project has passed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and is currently assessed at Technology Readiness Level 5 (TRL 5). The development target is to reach TRL 6 before the end of 2026; this is a planned milestone, not an achieved qualification.

Watch short demonstrations of the optical wavefront sensing development: Development video 1 ↗ · Development video 2 ↗ .

Photorealistic engineering render of the OL-SH16P optical wavefront sensor mechanical and optical assembly — OL-SH16P optical wavefront sensor — preliminary mechanical and optical design render. Select to enlarge ↗

Preliminary Design Review

The preliminary system architecture combines telescope coupling optics, a collimation stage, a microlens array, CMOS imaging and FPGA-based processing, with a local display and user interface. The illustration below is a preliminary design concept, not a released production configuration.

Preliminary Design Review — Selected Slides

Selected material from the January 2026 PDR, documenting the proposed system layout, microlens spot observations, laser bench experiments and centroid analysis. These are development records, not final product specifications.

Early optical bench and image-processing work includes microlens spot-pattern observations, laser focus evaluation and centroid extraction experiments. The material below documents development activities rather than final sensor performance.

OL-SH16P preliminary system architecture with telescope interface, collimation lens, microlens array, CMOS sensor and FPGA processing — System layout and component placement — Preliminary Design Review (January 2026).

Preliminary microlens spot pattern acquired with an astronomy CMOS camera — Microlens spot pattern — preliminary optical bench result ↗

Laser spot focus evaluation across intra-focus, focus and extra-focus conditions — Laser spot evaluation through focus ↗

MATLAB centroid extraction and time-series evaluation on a star image — Preliminary centroid location and tracking analysis ↗

Prototype Development & Validation

Photographs from earlier experimental stages document optical bench integration, prototype mechanics, sensor electronics and FPGA-based acquisition. They illustrate the progressive validation activities that preceded the present TRL 5 assessment; individual images should not be interpreted as formal TRL certification evidence.

Early optical assembly on the laboratory bench ↗

Optical prototype and mechanical integration ↗

CMOS sensor interface connected to FPGA development board ↗

Preliminary Datasheet

View / download draft datasheet (PDF) ↗

Important — preliminary document: This draft datasheet is a concept-stage placeholder. Its technical specifications, performance figures, interfaces, features and illustrations are provisional, may be inaccurate and must not be relied upon for design, purchasing or integration decisions. They are subject to revision as development progresses.

Development Updates

Additional project updates and development material are available through the following LinkedIn posts:

Modal wavefront reconstruction ↗Development study of modal wavefront reconstruction approaches for future FPGA acceleration and atmospheric turbulence analysis.
Scalable FPGA centroid processing ↗OLCEA demonstration progressing from a single spot to 3×3 and 7×5 centroid grids, processed in real time within FPGA fabric.
OLCEA algorithm implemented in VHDL RTL ↗Announcement of synthesizable, real-time centroid extraction from a video stream with deterministic one-frame latency.
Zernike coefficient decomposition ↗Demonstration of Zernike decomposition for a randomly aberrated optical wavefront.

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