Systems and methods providing free-space optical beam control

An optical path control system, comprising:

• a control circuit;
• a first optical steering system coupled to the control circuit and configured to induce a first optical path directional adjustment to an optical path within a first angular range;
• a solid-state optical steering system coupled to the control circuit, wherein the solid-state optical steering system is configured to induce a second optical path directional adjustment to the optical path within a second angular range, wherein the second angular range is greater than the first angular range;
• wherein the control circuit is configured to:
• output first control signaling to control the first optical steering system to induce the first optical path directional adjustment to the optical path within the first angular range;
• and
• output second control signaling to repeatedly control the solid-state optical steering system to change a resultant directional orientation of the optical path between multiple different remote targets based on the first optical path directional adjustment and the second optical path directional adjustment in a pattern over time providing free-space optical transmission and/or reception relative to each of the multiple different remote targets;
• and
• an image capture system optically aligned to receive in-bound light received along the optical path and capture frames at a main frame rate;
• wherein the control circuit is configured to:
• identify a number of image streams to capture and a respective directional orientation corresponding to each of the number of image streams;
• communicate the first control signaling and the second control signaling in cooperatively controlling the first optical steering system and the solid-state optical steering system in controlling the optical path to transition between the respective directional orientations based on a relationship between the main frame rate and the number of image streams;
• and
• associate captured frames into multiple sub-sets of frames corresponding to the number of image streams.