OPTI 524A Optical Systems Engineering

This class provides opportunities for students to learn practical engineering skills for developing optical systems. Students will work in groups on case studies that provide the opportunity to learn systems engineering skills firsthand. Some of the case studies will look at just the necessary requirements, others will include more detailed design, and two or more will be built by the students using off the shelf optics and mechanics. Some examples of optical applications that may be covered are imaging, spectroscopy, illumination, adaptive optics, communication, detection and metrology. These systems will be used to teach fundamentals of systems engineering, optical system design, quantifying performance for optical systems, debugging hardware and professional engineering skills. Graduate-level requirements include more assignments. Their role in the groups will be highly substantive in comparison to undergraduate student group student roles.