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arXiv · 2010.15246

The Raspberry Pi Auto-aligner: Machine Learning for Automated Alignment of Laser Beams

Renju S. Mathew·Roshan O'Donnell·Danielle Pizzey·Ifan G. Hughes
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Abstract

We present a novel solution to automated beam alignment optimization. This device is based on a Raspberry Pi computer, stepper motors, commercial optomechanics and electronic devices, and the open source machine learning algorithm M-LOOP. We provide schematic drawings for the custom hardware necessary to operate the device and discuss diagnostic techniques to determine the performance. The beam auto-aligning device has been used to improve the alignment of a laser beam into a single-mode optical fiber from manually optimized fiber alignment with an iteration time of typically 20~minutes. We present example data of one such measurement to illustrate device performance.

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Renju S. Mathew, Roshan O'Donnell, Danielle Pizzey, Ifan G. Hughes. 2020-10-22. The Raspberry Pi Auto-aligner: Machine Learning for Automated Alignment of Laser Beams. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0032588

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