Masanori ITABA¹, Atsushi MINATO¹, Hiroki AZUMI¹, Satoru OZAWA¹ and Nobuo SUGIMOTO²

¹Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ibaraki University, 4-12-1, Nakanarusawa, Hitachi, Ibaraki 316-8511, Japan, ²National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2, Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan

(Received September 11, 2001; Accepted October 30, 2001)

Retroreflectors on satellites are used as targets for laser ranging and laser long-path absorption measurements of atmospheric trace species. To compensate for the velocity aberration, slight tuning of the design is necessary. The curvatures of mirrors, the angles between mirrors, and the direction of the retroreflector on the satellite must be tuned to optimize the optical efficiency of the retroreflector. An enumerative scheme is not applicable when the number of parameters is large. We proposed earlier a technique using a genetic algorithm for the optical design of a space retroreflector.¹⁾ In this paper, we have improved the method introducing a hybrid technique that is a combination of a genetic algorithm and simulated annealing.

Key words: space retroreflector, optical design, genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, laser ranging, laser long-path absorption measurement