Patent ID: 7116613

Claim:
A beam position control system for controlling a position of a beam directed from a beam source, the system comprising: a beam position sensing system that receives the directed beam, generates a main beam and one or more satellite beams from the directed beam, transmits the main beam and the one or more satellite beams, and receives the transmission of the one or more satellite beams; a main beam offset computation block configured to determine a relative position of the main beam to a desired main beam position based at least in part on the detected transmission of the one or more satellite beans; main beam offset information generated by the main beam offset computational block; a controller configured to receive the main beam offset information from the main beam offset computation block; a compensation signal, generated by the controller, and designed to adjust the main beam position to the desired main beam position; and a beam actuator system configured to receive the compensation signal and to adjust the main beam position based on the compensation signal, the beam actuator system including, a signal generator which generates a plurality of signals across a selected range; and a beam deflector arranged to receive the plurality of signals, wherein the beam deflector is an acousto-optic modulator and a deflection angle α is a function of one of 2n * arcsin(λf/(2nV A ) and λf/V A wherein n is the optical index of refraction, λ is an optical wavelength, f is the acoustic frequency, and V A is the acoustic velocity.