Integration of SCUBA-2 within the JCMT Observatory Control System

Craig A. Walther; Xiaofeng Gao; Dennis Kelly; Russell D. Kackley; Tim Jenness

doi:10.1117/12.857879

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19 July 2010 Integration of SCUBA-2 within the JCMT Observatory Control System

Craig A. Walther, Xiaofeng Gao, Dennis Kelly, Russell D. Kackley, Tim Jenness

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Proceedings Volume 7740, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy; 77400Y (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857879
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The high data rates and unique operation modes of the SCUBA-2 instrument made for an especially challenging effort to get it working with the existing JCMT Observatory Control System (OCS). Due to some forethought by the original designers of the OCS, who had envisioned a SCUBA-2 like instrument years before it was reality, the JCMT was already being coordinated by a versatile Real Time Sequencer (RTS). The timing pulses from the RTS are fanned out to all of the SCUBA-2 Multi Channel Electronics (MCE) boxes allowing for precision timing of each data sample. The SCUBA-2 data handing and OCS communications are broken into two tasks, one doing the actual data acquisition and file writing, the other communicates with the OCS through Drama. These two tasks talk to each other via shared memory and semaphores. It is possible to swap back and forth between heterodyne and SCUBA-2 observing simply by selecting an observation for a particular instrument. This paper also covers the changes made to the existing OCS in order to integrate it with the new SCUBA-2 specific software.

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Craig A. Walther, Xiaofeng Gao, Dennis Kelly, Russell D. Kackley, and Tim Jenness "Integration of SCUBA-2 within the JCMT Observatory Control System", Proc. SPIE 7740, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy, 77400Y (19 July 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857879

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