Estimation of laser system pointing performance by use of statistics of return photons

Strategic laser systems are subject to residual pointing errors arising fro m vibrations and atmospheric turbulence, estimates of which may allow impro ved system performance. Field data hom the Air Force Research Laboratory Fl oodbeam Experiments suggested a linear relationship between the mean and st andard deviation of the shot-by-shot signals and the jitter. An ideal analy tic solution and Monte Carlo simulations confirmed this result for a relati vely large number of returns. A refined approach using statistical chi(2) t echniques, which simultaneously estimates jitter and boresight, was develop ed to address results from satellite passes with relatively few returns and provides excellent jitter and boresight predictions. (C) 2000 Optical Soci ety of America OCIS codes: 120.0280, 120.5630, 010.1300, 130.6750.