Abstract-An x -y active alignment system based on Risley Beam Steerers is described. The demonstrator features a quadrant detector which detects the misalignment error between the center of a spot of light and the center of the quadrant detector. This misalignment error is then used by a new algorithm to calculate the rotational displacement required for the two Risley Beam Steerers to steer the spot of light to the center of the quadrant detector. The experimental results indicate that any spot misaligned by up to 160 p,m on the quadrant detector will be systematically centered by the demonstrator system.

We describe a system demonstrator based on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, metal-semiconductor-metal detectors, printed circuit board (PCB) level optoelectronic device packaging, a compact bulk optical relay, and novel barrel/PCB optomechanics. The entire system was constructed in a standard VME electrical backplane chassis and was capable of operating at >1.7 Gbit/s of aggregate data capacity. In addition to the component technologies developed, we describe operational testing and characterization of the demonstrator.

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An interferometric alignment technique developed for the assembly of microchannel relay systems is described. The method uses pairs of diffractive lenslets that are arranged to form compact in situ interferometers. The relative transverse, longitudinal, and rotational alignment of the two lenslet arrays can be quantitatively determined from the resulting interference patterns. The theoretical analysis is compared with the experimental performance.