Method and apparatus for compensating for atmospheric distortion

Description (excerpt)

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application is a divisional of prior U.S. Application No. 17/583,421, filed 25 Jan. 2022, titled “Atmospheric Compensation Disc” FEDERALLY-SPONSORED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT The United States Government has ownership rights in this invention. Licensing and technical inquiries may be directed to the Office of Research and Technical Applications, Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Code 72120, San Diego, CA, 92152; voice (619) 553-5118; ssc_pac_t2@navy.mil. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Adaptive optics systems that employ LASERs to create artificial guide stars are currently used to actively compensate for atmospheric turbulence. These adaptive optics systems contain imaging systems to measure these guide stars and then use deformable mirrors or spatial light modulators to apply a compensating spatial phase to the propagating light field to correct the atmospheric distortion. Traditional adaptive optics systems, while precise, are inherently expensive, large, complicated, and difficult to implement. There is a need for an improved atmospheric distortion compensator. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Throughout the several views, like elements are referenced using like references. The elements in the figures are not drawn to scale and some dimensions are exaggerated for clarity. FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of an atmospheric distortion compensator. FIG. 2 is a front view illustration of an embodiment of a diffractive optical element disc. FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an embodiment of an atmospheric distortion compensator. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS The disclosed apparatus below may be described generally, as well as in terms of specific examples and/or specific embodiments. For instances where references are made to detailed examples and/or embodiments, it should be appreciated that any of the underlying principles described are not to be limited to a single embodiment, but may be expanded for use with any of the other apparatus described herein as will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art unless otherwise stated specifically. References in the present disclosure to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” or any variation thereof, means that a particular element, feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiments is included in at least one embodiment. The appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment,” “in some embodiments,” and “in other embodiments” in various places in the present disclosure are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment or the same set of embodiments. As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” “including,” “has,” “having,” or any variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited to only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Further, unless expressly stated to the contrary, “or” refers to an inclusive or and not to an exclusive or. Additionally, use of words such as “the,” “a,” or “an” are employed to describe elements and components of the embodiments herein; this is done merely for grammatical reasons and to conform to idiomatic English. This detailed description should be read to include one or at least one, and the singular also includes the plural unless it is clearly indicated otherwise. FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustration of an example embodiment of an atmospheric distortion compensator 10 (hereinafter referred to as compensator 10 ) that comprises, consists of, or consists essentially of a disc 12 and a rotator 14 . The disc 12 is rotationally balanced about a center point 16 and comprises a phase-modifying structure on a surface 18 . The rotator 14 is mechanically coupled to the disc's center point 16 and configured to spin the disc 12 about an axis A. The compensator 10 may be used to reduce scintillation effects within an electro-optical field of a heterogeneous medium 22 , such as air, which effects are caused by a beam 20 as it propagates through the heterogeneous medium 22 . The compensator 10 is configured such that the beam 20 , while propagating parallel to the axis A, impinges on the disc 12 while the disc 12 is spinning, thereby allowing the compensator 10 to control a property of a beam 20 in an effort to reduce scintillation effects. <div id="p-0014" num="0013" class="description-p