A parallel integrated model of the Euro50

Abstract

The Euro50 is an astronomical extremely large telescope for optical and infrared wavelength with a 50 m primary mirror. The telescope will have an elaborate control system ("live optics") to correct for atmospheric and telescope aberrations. To study and predict performance of the complete telescope system, an integrated model combining the structural model of the telescope, optics models, the control systems, and the adaptive optics has been established. Wind is taken into account on the basis of wind tunnel measurements and computer fluid dynamics calculations. Atmospheric aberrations are included using a seven-layer atmosphere model. The integrated model is written in Matlab and is run on a cluster computer to achieve acceptable execution times. Dedicated ordinary differential equation solvers have been written and a special toolkit for communication between Matlab processes on different nodes of the cluster computer has been set up. Preliminary results from the complete integrated model, including adaptive optics, are shown.

Transitioning a message passing interface wavefront sensor model to a graphics processor environment

“…At the outset of the work on the Euro50 model it was hoped that the problem was sufficiently loosely coupled that it could be parallelized on a functional basis, whereby different nodes represent and simulate different physical parts of the telescope [1]. Implementing the model on a cluster, allowed two disadvantages of a traditional single PC approach to be challenged; speed and memory footprint.…”

“…Previous work [1] [4] [5] has addressed this challenge through a series of increasingly sophisticated approaches aimed at balancing the need for timely simulation results with a desire to provide an easy to use and productive model development environment. This work was carried out in the context of the Euro50 design study [6].…”

Simulation of adaptive optics for the Vacuum Tower Telescope

“…Wind and atmosphere models are also included [2]. The system is simulated in Matlab using an Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) solver.…”

Systems engineering for the conceptual design of the Thirty Meter Telescope

“…Both processes require extensive modeling, ranging from analytical estimates to integrated and end-to-end simulations. Our modeling strategy is somewhat different from those of other ground based projects 6,7 in that we are currently using a temporal frequency domain integrated model that is the result of several years of extensive preparations 8 . The present model and some preliminary wind buffeting results are summarized in section 4.…”