Fast algorithm for blind optimization of optical systems. Statistics and methodology

Adaptive Optics (AO) improves the efficiency of the optical devices in confocal imaging systems by reducing wavefront aberrations. Aberration is caused by imperfections within the system and reduces the optical signal to noise ratio of the resultant images besides deteriorating the quality of the images. An adaptive optics system comprises a wavefront sensor and a deformable mirror (DM), is a straightforward solution to compensate for this distortion. In confocal microscopy, the wavefront sensor can be supplanted with an optimization algorithm. We have previously implemented the general simulated annealing (SA) algorithm for optimizing confocal microscopes. In this paper the modified version of the simulated annealing algorithm, fast simulated annealing (FSA) is investigated which takes less than one hundredth of the optimization time required by the general version.