1. ALMA-UTFSM Group ALMA-UTFSM Group: Developing software for and with ALMA Matias Mora Klein Rodrigo Tobar Carrizo Computer Systems Research Group Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María http://csrg.inf.utfsm.cl

2. ALMA-UTFSM Group Agenda ● The ALMA-UTFSM Group ● ALMA Common Software ● Generic Telescope Control System – Overview – Simulation Environment – External deployment ● Collaborations ● Future Work

3. ALMA-UTFSM Group The ALMA-UTFSM Group ● Since 2002: Summer internships at LSO ● Work with ESO -> ALMA ● 2004: 3-4 students group at UTFSM ● 2005: first official ACS product – ACS developers ● 2006: ALMA-Conicyt application – 2007-2009: “Software Development for ALMA...” ● ALMA Computing staff

4. ALMA-UTFSM Group The ALMA-UTFSM Group ● Today: – 20+ active students, part of CSRG – More and more professors – Lots of summer internships – Theses and publications – Various ongoing projects: ● RAES, ARPA, SWAT, AFI, SSG, DDSNC, AWU, TelSE, CSAT, gTCS, ETC...

5. ALMA-UTFSM Group ALMA Common Software ● What is ACS? – Common distributed platform for the ALMA software – For generic control, beyond the ALMA project – Mainly developed by ESO in Garching

6. ALMA-UTFSM Group Generic Telescope Control System New Project New Development WHAT!? ● Duplicated effort: – Waste of time – Waste of money – Waste of everything...

7. ALMA-UTFSM Group Generic Telescope Control System ● Solution: – A gTCS, based on ACS – Regardless the telescope mount – Focused on hardware control, not data acquisition – Support pluggable devices – Provide a dynamic simulation environment – Easy to extend to different telescopes ● Specifications, code generation

8. ALMA-UTFSM Group Generic Telescope Control System ● First prototype: CSAT – Learned about telescope control concepts – Deployed at Observatorio UC, OCA and UTFSM ● First RFC-like very-very soon ● Simulation environment prototype under development ● Community discussion: ACS Workshop 2008

9. ALMA-UTFSM Group Collaborations

10. ALMA-UTFSM Group Future Work ● 5 th ACS Workshop 2008 (Nov. 24 th -28 th ) – Common talks, basic and advanced tracks – http://acsworkshop.inf.utfsm.cl http://acsworkshop.inf.utfsm.cl ● Summer internships at ALMA sites and others ● Finish gTCS and related projects ● Explore new areas: dynamic scheduling, data reduction ● Applying to new funds...

11. ALMA-UTFSM Group Conclusions ● Software development for ALMA ● Software development with ALMA ● Engineering for Astronomy made in Chile!

12. ALMA-UTFSM Group Questions? Want more? http://acs.inf.utfsm.cl acsinfo@inf.utfsm.cl