학술논문

South Pole Telescope Software Systems: Control, Monitoring, and Data Acquisition
Document Type
Working Paper
Source
Proc. SPIE 8451, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy II, 84510T (September 24, 2012)
Subject
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Language
Abstract
We present the software system used to control and operate the South Pole Telescope. The South Pole Telescope is a 10-meter millimeter-wavelength telescope designed to measure anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at arcminute angular resolution. In the austral summer of 2011/12, the SPT was equipped with a new polarization-sensitive camera, which consists of 1536 transition-edge sensor bolometers. The bolometers are read out using 36 independent digital frequency multiplexing (\dfmux) readout boards, each with its own embedded processors. These autonomous boards control and read out data from the focal plane with on-board software and firmware. An overall control software system running on a separate control computer controls the \dfmux boards, the cryostat and all other aspects of telescope operation. This control software collects and monitors data in real-time, and stores the data to disk for transfer to the United States for analysis.