The VINCI instrument software in the very large telescope environment

Author

Longinotti, Antonio ; Bickert, Klaus ; Cautain, Raphael ; Dupin, Jean Pierre ; Kervella, Pierre ; Kiekebush, Mario ; Duc, Thanh Phan ; Tilloles, Pierre ; Valentin, Herve

Author_Institution

Eur. Southern Obs., Garching, Germany

Volume

49

Issue

2

fYear

2002

fDate

4/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

483

Lastpage

490

Abstract

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) very large telescope interferometer (VLTI) got first fringes on March 17, 2001 at Mount Paranal in Chile. The VINCI instrument has played a key role in the achievement of this important milestone and is a fundamental component for the current VLTI operations. This paper, after a brief introduction of the VLTI and the instrument itself, will focus mainly on control software aspects. It describes the VINCI hardware and software architecture in the context of the whole VLT control concept. Particular emphasis is given to real-time control aspects, data acquisition, distribution of control over several hardware platforms, networks, standardization of hardware and software components, and software configuration control management

Keywords

astronomical telescopes; astronomy computing; configuration management; data acquisition; light interferometers; parallel architectures; physical instrumentation control; real-time systems; ESO; European Southern Observatory; VINCI instrument software; architecture; control software aspects; data acquisition; networks; optical interferometry; real-time control aspects; software configuration control management; standardization; very large telescope environment; very large telescope interferometer; Delay lines; Hardware; Instruments; Laboratories; Mirrors; Object detection; Observatories; Optical interferometry; Optical modulation; Telescopes;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2002.1003782

Filename

1003782