Development of a platform-independent receiver control system for SISIFOS

Roland Lemke; Michael Olberg

doi:10.1117/12.308817

26 May 1998 Development of a platform-independent receiver control system for SISIFOS

Roland Lemke, Michael Olberg

Proceedings Volume 3351, Telescope Control Systems III; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.308817
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 1998, Kona, HI, United States

Abstract

Up to now receiver control software was a time consuming development usually written by receiver engineers who had mainly the hardware in mind. We are presenting a low-cost and very flexible system which uses a minimal interface to the real hardware, and which makes it easy to adapt to new receivers. Our system uses Tcl/Tk as a graphical user interface (GUI), SpecTcl as a GUI builder, Pgplot as plotting software, a simple query language (SQL) database for information storage and retrieval, Ethernet socket to socket communication and SCPI as a command control language. The complete system is in principal platform independent but for cost saving reasons we are using it actually on a PC486 running Linux 2.0.30, which is a copylefted Unix. The only hardware dependent part are the digital input/output boards, analog to digital and digital to analog convertors. In the case of the Linux PC we are using a device driver development kit to integrate the boards fully into the kernel of the operating system, which indeed makes them look like an ordinary device. The advantage of this system is firstly the low price and secondly the clear separation between the different software components which are available for many operating systems. If it is not possible, due to CPU performance limitations, to run all the software in a single machine,the SQL-database or the graphical user interface could be installed on separate computers.

Citation Download Citation

Roland Lemke and Michael Olberg "Development of a platform-independent receiver control system for SISIFOS", Proc. SPIE 3351, Telescope Control Systems III, (26 May 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.308817

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KEYWORDS

Receivers

Human-machine interfaces

Control systems

Tin

Analog electronics

Operating systems

Software development

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