Modeling and Analysis of a Fast Steering Mirror Based on the Transfer-Matrix Method

The Fast Steering Mirror (FSM) is a critical beam steering component in precision optical systems. However, its design often relies on repetitive finite element analysis (FEM) and experimentation due to the lack of universal and efficient theoretical models. To address this, this paper proposes a generalized and modular modeling and analysis framework for FSMs based on the Transfer Matrix Method (TMM). A generalized four-actuator FSM structure is first decomposed into basic elements such as flexure hinges and rigid links, whose individual transfer matrices are assembled according to the system topology to construct the overall dynamic model. Validation against FEM shows static pointing angle errors are within 0.5%, and the error for the first natural frequency is less than 4%. Crucially, the framework’s generality was validated by substituting elliptical hinges with a circular variant without altering the global equations, achieving a 1.77% dynamic prediction error. Furthermore, computational time per case was reduced from 10–30 minutes using FEM to approximately 13 milliseconds. By circumventing the manual equation re-derivation typical of geometry-specific models, this significant efficiency improvement, combined with high accuracy, makes the proposed modular framework an effective tool for rapid conceptual design, parametric optimization, and the evaluation of diverse topological architectures.