HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGE-RESTORATION BY STELLAR INTERFEROMETRY - THE 5 BEAM OPTICAL SIMULATOR

Preliminary to the construction of giant stellar interferometric array s, a laboratory 5 beam optical interferometer has been built to test t he validity of the image restoration by optical aperture synthesis und er conditions close to the reality. After a scientific and technical d escription of the CHARON interferometric array project we present in d etail the different components of this optical test bench now in opera tion. The basic principles and calculations used to achieve the labora tory simulator are also presented.