New control system for IAC-80 and TCS

Start year
2019
End year
2023
Organizational Unit

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    General
    Description

    The Carlos Sánchez and IAC80 telescopes, known as TTNN and located in the Teide Observatory, are telescopes manually operated by astronomers (in person or remotely) through specific computer applications developed mostly in the 90's. These applications allow the control of the movement of the telescope (motors and encoders), as well as the integrated auxiliary mechanisms and subsystems, such as: dome, upper and lower hatches, mirror cover, weather station, alarms, GPS, seeing meter, etc. This control system resides in a control PC, which houses various cards to communicate with the different elements, and an auxiliary PC, connected through an RS232 line, which acts as a user interface. Although there have been some actions to modernize the system, much of it is still based on components that are now completely obsolete.

    The objective of this project is therefore to improve the control system of these telescopes, so that the new software and hardware environments will have a modern, robust and versatile design, allowing a more efficient control, to be remotely operated and facilitating, later on, its automatic operation.

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    Capability
    Collage of three images of user interfaces and design of computer applications for the control of instrumentation
    Design and development of computer control systems and applications
    The advances and the complexity of the instrumentation control systems and their integration with the telescopes or infrastructures where they are going to be installed, requires the development of customized computer applications that offer the required functionality to the users and communicate with the rest of the systems.
    Image of an engineer working on the electronics of the adaptive optics system for GTC in the laboratory. Engineer sitting working on a computer with an open electronics cabinet at his side
    Design, development and manufacture of electronic systems
    Within its capacity of building scientific instrumentation, the IAC has extensive experience in the design and development of electronic systems in general and, especially, for astronomical instruments and devices