Gain of optical distributed sensing in distributed parameter systems

A real time holographic sensing technique is introduced and its advantages arc investigated from the filtering and control point of view. The feature of holographic sensing is its capability to make distributed measurements of the position and velocity of moving objects, such as a vibrating flexible space structure. This study is based upon the distributed parameter models of linear time-invariant systems, particularly including the linear oscillator equations describing the vibration of large flexible space structures. The general conclusion is that application of optical distributed sensors brings gain in the situation where Kalman filtering is necessary for state estimation. In this case, both transient and steady stale filtering error covariance becomes smaller. This in turn results in smaller cost in the LQG problem.