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| Paper: |
The MMT-POL Instrument Control System |
| Volume: |
442, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XX (ADASSXX) |
| Page: |
321 |
| Authors: |
Warner, C.; Packham, C.; Jones, T. J.; Varosi, F.; Eikenberry, S. S.; Dewahl, K.; Krejny, M. |
| Abstract: |
Instrument control system (ICS) suites are a continually evolving class of
software packages that are highly dependent upon the design choices and
application programming interfaces (APIs) of the observatory control system
(OCS), as well as the hardware choices for motors and electronics. We present
the ICS for MMT-POL, a 1–5 μm polarimeter for the MMT telescope, in the
context of being a transitional step between the software packages developed
for facility class instruments at the University of Florida (UF), such as Flamingos-II and CanariCam, and
in preparation for 30 m-class instruments.
Our goals for improving ICS suites are to make them (a) portable (compile
once, run anywhere), (b) highly modular and extensible (through the re-use
of common libraries), (c) multi-threaded (to allow multiple tasks to be
performed in parallel), (d) smart, and (e) easy to use and maintain. An
ICS should also be well-defined and use mature languages (we choose Java and Python) and common standards (such as XML and the FITS file format). We also
note that as hardware moves away from serial communications to ethernet, the
use of TCP sockets makes communication faster and easier. Below, we present
our design choices for the MMT-POL ICS and discuss our reasons for these
choices and potential issues that must be addressed for future ICS suites
ready for thirty meter class instruments. |
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