<title>Robust control system for the new 1.2-m telescopes of the Geneva Observatory</title>

Abstract

The Geneva Observatory has built two new 1.2-meter twin telescopes, one of them already operating in Chile since May 1998. The second prototype will be installed at the end of the year 2000 on the Canary Island La Palma (Spain). The technological complexity of these alt-azimuthal telescopes, as well as the operational constraints (an observer should be able to command on his own the whole infrastructure) required a control system taking care of all observation tasks, similar to the ones mounted on much larger telescopes. This paper presents the hardware and the distributed software architecture of this 1.2-meter telescope control system, entirely designed and built by the Geneva Observatory. The modular concept and the choices of hardware tested in industrial automation made it possible to obtain great operational robustness and guarantee for long-term maintenance. The adopted solution is based on a transputer tree-network. The interactions between telescope and observer are transparent and completely integrated in the observation software of the attached instrument.

Design and development of telescope control system and software for the 50/80 cm Schmidt telescope

“…The distributed control system based on microcontrollers has been used in many telescope and mirror control systems. [2][3][4][5] The heart of the hardware system is the axis controller whose objective is to provide accurate tracking and pointing in sky. As tracking performance in a telescope is most critical, in this paper we discuss in detail the velocity control aspects of the axis using a low cost controller based on a dsPIC microcontroller.…”