Medicina, 07/10/2008 1

NURAGHE/ESCS:Telescope driving

subsystem

Andrea Orlati

Nuraghe

• Designed for the Sardinia Radiotelescope• It’s modular• We hope it will have comparable durability and

robustness…..

• Carried on by GAI06 starting from 2004• The formal goal of the group is to develop the

software for the telescope commissioning and for acceptance tests…..

• ….but sooner or later the control software must be ready also for hungry astronomers.

• http://www.ira.inaf.it/Library/rapp-int/371-05.pdf

ESCS• Stands for Enhanced Single-dish Control

System• Current Medicina control software is based on

Field System, designed for VLBI experiments.• The new K band 7-feeds receiver urged the

definition of new requirements for the single-dish observations.

• http://www.ira.inaf.it/Library/rapp-int/409-07.pdf

NURAGHEESCS

SRTMedicinaSRTMedicina

System overview

Requirements• Supported frames: Horizontal, Equatorial,

Galactic• Tracking precision: 2 arcseconds• OTF scans

– Cross scans• Raster scans• Solar System bodies• Probes and artificial satellites• Catalogues

– Calibration catalogues• Simulation mode

Technical Specification • Time Tagged Program Track• Auto stow on high speed winds• “Istantaneous” offsets from metrology• Fault tolerance• Events logging• Alarms propagation on hardware failures• Remote console• Code reuse for all telescopes• VLBI support• Both user and technical documentation• LGPL based

Tools• Platform Scientific Linux (kernel 2.6.9)• Development:C++ (99%) and Python• Scripting: bash• Compilation: GNU Make• Database schemas: XML• Repository: CVS• Documentation: Doxygen and HTML• CORBA Vendor: TAO (C++)• On-the shelf libraries: curses, slaLibrary, QT

Alma Common Software• Distributed Objects • Centralized logger• Centralized data base for system configuration• Alarms hierachy propagation• Error system• Multiplatform and multilanguage• Component/Container model• ACS is based on CORBA

ACS architectureApplications

UIF libraries

Scripting4 - Hi-level APIs and tools

...more to come...

ACS InstallerACS Application Framework

Command System

Alarm System

SamplingArchiving System

3 - Services ACS Container Serialization Plugs

Error System

Logging System

Time System

Data channel

2 - Core components

ACS Component Configuration Database

CORBA Middleware ACEDevelopment tools1 - Base tools

Astro libraries(from Commercial/Shared packages)

FITS libraries(from Commercial/Shared packages)

Device Drivers

5 - Integrated APIs and tools

Component Diagram

Class diagram

Observation management

Coordinates generator

Status• Probes and artificial satellites still missing• SRT ACU driver still missing• OTF, sidereal tracking fully tested• Quite stable during few hours of observation• To be tested under production• Remote console and FS support almost done• Some known bugs are to be tracked down

Hopefully we’ll be ready together with acquisition part before winter, so the first 22 Gigs map can be produced

People

• Giuseppe Maccaferri (Permanent position)• Carlo Migoni (Permanent position)• Andrea Orlati (Fixed Term position)• Simona Righini (PHD Student)• Rashmi Verma (PHD Student)

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