Characterisation of a large aperture steep concave parabolic mirror using SASI based on auto-collimation theory

To characterise a large aperture steep concave parabolic mirror, a new sub-aperture stitching interferometry measurement technology (SASI) based on auto-collimation is proposed. The principle of the stitching process is analysed, and the sub-aperture partitioning for a full aperture of a paraboloid is discussed. Next, the overlapped sampled points between sub-apertures are rectified through sampled points realigned in mesh grids. Finally, two experiments, the SASI based on auto-collimation and the full aperture test, were implementedfor a parabolic mirror. The stitching result exhibits good agreement with the full-aperture result.