Instrumentation & R&D
An overview of the main projects I’ve led and been involved with over the years — PI-led R&D projects, and the large instrumentation consortia I contribute to.
Neuromorphic Space Situational Awareness for Wide-Area Real-Time Surveillance. Neuromorphic (event-based) sensing and processing for wide-area, real-time surveillance of the space environment. Funded by FCT, 2026–2029.
Another PhD / researcher position to open in Q2–Q3 2027 — see Work with me.
Optical Phase-retrieval Techniques and Instrumentation for Modern Astronomy. Leading efforts in optical phase-retrieval and advanced instrumentation techniques within the OPTIMA framework.
Coronagraphic Instrument and Adaptive Optics for PCS. Contributions to the coronagraphic and adaptive-optics subsystem design for the Planetary Camera and Spectrograph.
Expanding the Technological Readiness of Future Wide-field Adaptive-Optics Systems for Ground-based Astronomy — Feb’15–Jan’19, €400k, funded by A*MIDEX as an initiative of excellence. The EXTRA team gathered the PI (myself) and:
Detection of exo-planets via High-Accuracy Radial-velocity spectrographic measurements with Adaptive-Optics enHancement. PIEF-GA-2011-300162 (call FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF), Jan’13–Dec’14. Assessed the impact of AO correction on the detectability of Earth-like planets with a high-resolution, high-stability spectrograph on the future E-ELT.
Upgrade of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at ESO, with a new extreme adaptive-optics system, laser guide stars and an upgraded GRAVITY instrument. Contributions on adaptive-optics performance and the exploitation of AO telemetry for long-baseline interferometry. First-light paper: doi.
E-ELT instrument. Involvement in the design and performance assessment of the Planetary Camera and Spectrograph for the E-ELT.
Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph — an E-ELT first-light instrument. Contributions to adaptive-optics performance analysis and wavefront sensing.
Adaptive Optics Visiting Scientist. Projects: KAPA, RTC Upgrade, Predictive Control, PSF reconstruction.
The first-light spectroscopic capability for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), providing visible and near-infrared integral field spectroscopy. Main tasks:
Developed at the University of Victoria Adaptive Optics Lab, Raven was the first Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO) technical and science demonstrator installed on an 8 m class telescope, the Subaru Telescope. Contributed to design specification, real-time tomographic wavefront reconstruction & control, and calibration — leading the advisory of several students and papers [see full list here].
TMT will be the first ground-based astronomy telescope designed with adaptive optics as an integral system element. The Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) will be the first AO system deployed on TMT. Led efforts on the optimisation of sky-coverage through optimal dynamical estimation of tilt and tilt-anisoplanatism modes, and on PSF reconstruction from AO telemetry for this novel and demanding multi-conjugate mode.