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Paper: CARMA Software Development
Volume: 295, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems XII
Page: 377
Authors: Pound, M. W.; Amarnath, N. S.; Rauch, K. P.; Teuben, P. J.; Scott, S. L.; Hobbs, R.; Beard, A.; Daniel, P.; Mehringer, D.; Plante, R.; Kraybill, J. C.; Wright, M.; Leitch, E.
Abstract: CARMA (Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy) will combine the existing BIMA and OVRO mm interferometers into a single array at a new high altitude site (∼ 8000 ft). A third array, the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Array (SZA), will be built in the next two years and co-located with the CARMA interferometer. The SZA antennas will be available at times for cross-correlation with the CARMA antennas. This combination of heterogeneous antennas and their subsystems bring up new challenges not only in hardware, but also in software and in remote collaborations. The two existing arrays have their own mature operations software, developed over the last decade, and the SZA software will be partially based on the DASI system currently at the South Pole. For CARMA, the situation is not as simple as choosing one over the other. It is further complicated by the fact that the software developers are dispersed among five institutions and three time zones. Such multi-institution development requires frequent communication, local oversight, and reliable code management tools. Timeline has forced us to carefully balance reusing existing software, with perhaps wrappers to a new more object oriented approach, and rewriting from scratch. New hardware, such as the correlator, has already resulted in new software, but we anticipate re-using a fair fraction of the existing telescope software. This paper summarizes our ideas on how we plan to do this, as well as outline what we call the CARMA Software Toolkit and associated Software Engineering aspects.
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