Adaptive Optics: Transition to High-Resolution Wavefront Control (New Algorithms and Adaptive System Architectures) Mikhail Vorontsov e-mail: mvorontsov@arl.army.mil Army Research Laboratory and Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park We discuss new emerging approaches for adaptive wavefront control that have been triggered by both the rapid development of wavefront phase control devices with a large (10^3-10^6) number of controlling elements (MEMS mirror arrays and large arrays of LC phase shifting elements), and the growing need for high-resolution wavefront control in many military and industrial applications. The transition to high-resolution adaptive optics is not simply a matter of scaling the existing low-resolution adaptive optics hardware. In most cases the existing adaptive optics architectures based on wavefront reconstruction and the phase-conjugation approach are not scalable, and should be replaced by principally different adaptive control system architectures. This presentation intends to give an overview of new adaptive wavefront control algorithms and system architectures that can be used for future high-resolution adaptive systems. Among these are adaptive systems based on model-free optimization techniques such as stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) and the related decoupled SPGD optimization, gradient-flow optimization-based control, and diffractive-feedback (nonlinear dynamics) based adaptive control. We also discuss adaptive wavefront control for free-space laser communication applications which are characterized by the extremely high intensity scintillation levels that are typical for near-horizontal or low-latitude laser beam propagation paths. In free-space laser communication, communication occurs between two (or many) friendly parties. This allows the active exchange of information regarding the instantaneous state of the communication channel. The use of this information could greatly simplify adaptive optics beam control, and minimize system cost. Results of numerical simulations for different wavefront control system configurations, as well as some preliminary experimental results, are presented. Mikhail A. Vorontsov received his Ph.D. in physics in 1977 and Doctor of Science in physics and mathematics in 1989, both from Moscow State University (Russia). Currently he is a senior physicist in the Computational and Information Sciences Directorate of the Army Research Laboratory and Director of the Intelligent Optics Laboratory at University of Maryland, College Park. He has published over 230 papers and four books on the subjects of adaptive optics, nonlinear spatio-temporal dynamics, imaging through turbulence, parallel image processing and correction, optical synergetics, optimal control theory, and optical neural networks. He is an ARL, SPIE and OSA Fellow.