Project Personnel
The Project
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size=4> | Project Personnel
Project Leader
Project Scientist
The Project
The more stringent antenna control and monitoring requirements of the Australia Telescope Compact Array operating at high frequencies make it essential to upgrade the telescope antenna control computers. The challenge with a research instrument such as the Compact Array is to make a control system which is both flexible and reliable in the face of changing requirements.
The MNRF contribution to the ATOMS project is in the form of funding for two positions to help with the implementation of the antenna control computers. Both these positions were filled in September 1997. A number of important parts of the project have been completed, including the design of an antenna-independent low-level interface and an easily-extended antenna control framework using object-oriented techniques. A number of high-integrity software components required for real-time interaction with the antenna hardware have also been designed, and coding of these is progressing using the C++ language. Finally, several observatory data management utilities have been completed using the Java programming language.
It is expected that a prototype antenna control computer will be available by mid-1999 and that production machines will be installed in the Australia Telescope Compact Array antennas in early 2000.
The various locations of the ATNF make it especially challenging to develop software that will work and that can be developed at any of the ATNF sites, so another important ATOMS initiative is the planning and implementation of a distributed online software development environment. This will enable software development for the ATNF online systems that can support distributed development across the ATNF sites.
The ATOMS project is accessible through the ATOMS web pages. The Aims of the ATOMS project and a Plan for implementing those aims is available to give an overview of the project.
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