Laboratory characterization of the ARGOS laser wavefront sensor

In this paper we present the integration status of the ARGOS wavefront sensor and the results of the closed loop tests performed in laboratory. ARGOS is the laser guide star adaptive optics system of the Large Binocular Telescope. It is designed to implement a Ground Layer Adaptive Optics correction for LUCI, an infrared imaging camera and multi-object spectrograph, using 3 pulsed Rayleigh beacons focused at 12km altitude. The WFS is configured as a Shack-Hartman sensor having a 15 x 15 subaspertures over the telescope pupil. In the WFS each LGS is independently stabilized for on-sky jitter and range-gated to reduce spot elongation. The 3 LGS are arranged on a single lenslet array and detector by the use of off-axis optics in the final part of the WFS. The units of WFS are in the integration and testing phase at Arcetri Observatory premises. We describe here the test aimed to demonstrate the functionality of the WFS in an adaptive optics closed loop performed using the internal light sources of the WFS and a MEMS deformable mirror.