Control-Oriented Adaptive Optics: Lecture Notes for Automation and Aerospace Engineers

These lecture notes provide a control-oriented foundation for Adaptive Optics (AO), specifically tailored for Master of Science and PhD students in Automation and Aerospace Engineering. While traditional AO literature is typically written from the perspective of optical physics, this manuscript reframes the entire AO problem through the lens of Systems and Control Engineering. The text covers the mathematical modeling of the atmospheric disturbance and optomechanical plant, spatial calibration and interaction matrices, temporal dynamics and loop delays, and the transition from single-conjugate integral controllers to advanced state-space estimations and wide-field tomographic architectures. A dedicated optical primer is included for engineers without a background in optics.