Schematic of a Kernel-5 beam combiner, based on the design of Guyon et al. (2013). Inputs V₁ through V₅ pass through five adaptive nuller units (AN), a series of ten beam splitter modules (A₁ through A₁₀) consisting of a beam splitter and phase shifting plate on one input, and four spatial filters (SF). The five outputs consist of one bright output W₁ and four nulled outputs W₂ through W₄. Two shutters (S) can be used in case of a telescope failure (see Sect. 4). The inset shows the telescope configuration and their corresponding inputs.