1. Instrumentation Software - Overview

2. Presentation Contents Instrumentation Software Overview
Subsystems, software Architecture
Instrument Control Software
Architecture, review of main features at the WS and LCU level.
New features with in VLTSW release

3. Instruments Subsystems
Detectors
Instrument Functions
Adaptive Optics Module
Telescope
Interferometer
The main instruments subsystems are listed here:
In blue are the systems which are normally part of the instrument, in black are the systems which are part of the VLT facility.
Detectors: collecting the light and convert it in digital format.
Instrument: Grouping all opto-mechanical devices setting the light path to detector heads according to the different instrument modes.
AO module: System aimed to cancel aberrations introduced by the atmosphere in real time.
Telescope: System which main task is to point to the right direction in the sky and keep the target stable with the best possible image quality.
Interferometer: System which allows to combine the light from two or more telescopes on different configurations which can be used, among other things, to determine the shape of an object surface.

4. Instruments Subsystems
Detectors
Detector Control Software (DCS)
Instrument Functions
Instrument Control Software (ICS)
Adaptive Optics Module
Real Time Control Software (RTC)
Telescope
Telescope Control Software (TCS)
Interferometer
Interferometer Supervisor Software (ISS)
The task of the instrumentation software is to coordinate all of them in order to take images from the sky at the right position and with the correct instrument configuration.
Each of these systems has a dedicated control software .
The task for the instrumentation software is to coordinate all of them in order to take images from the sky at the right position and with the correct instrument configuration.

5. Instruments Subsystems
Detector Control Software (DCS)
Main Tasks
Take exposures for different read-out modes
Image Transfer and Display
Save images as FITS files
Various Systems
CCD Software (technical CCD)
Fiera Software (Optical CCD)
Irace Software (Infrared CCD)
NGC Optical and NGC Infrared Software (VLTSW release 2009)
Interface
Command Interface (SETUP, START, WAIT, ABORT, END)
Public OLDB
Currently there are 5 different Detector Control Software. CCD software for the technical CCDs, Fiera and Irace for the first generation of scientific detectors and NGC as the detector control software for optical and infrared detectors.
They all share the features like to take exposures for different read-out modes, image transfer and display and save images as FITS files.
The interface is mainly the public OLDB and the commands. The main important ones are: SETUP, START, WAIT, ABORT and END.

6. Instruments Subsystems
Instrument Control Software (ICS)
Main Task
Control and monitor the instrument functions (hardware) like motors, shutters and filter wheels, etc.
Interfaces
Command Interface (SETUP, STATUS, STOP, EXPSTRT, EXPEND)
Public OLDB
Please note the different between Instrumentation Software (INS) and Instrument Control Software (ICS).
ICS just refers to the control of the instrument functions while INS refers to the entire application.
The main task of the ICS is to control the various hardware functions of the instrument like motors, shutters and filter wheels.
The interface is a public OLDB and a set of commands.
Command EXPSTRT do all the actions related to the start of an exposure.
Command EXPEND do all the actions related to the end of an exposure.
Command STOP stop immediately all ongoing hardware movements.
Command STATUS return the information related with the devices like for instance current position, if it is in simulation or normal mode, etc.

7. Instruments Subsystems
Real Time Computer (RTC)
Main Task
Data acquisition, Reconstruction and Control in order to compensate for the atmospheric aberrations.
Systems
MACAO
SPARTA (under development)
Interfaces
Command Interface (SETUP, EXPSTAT, EXPEND, ACQUIRE, OPENLP, CLOSELP, SUSPEND, RESUME)
Public OLDB
The Real Time Computer is the adaptive module whose main task is to compensate for the atmospheric aberrations. The interface is a public OLDB and a set of commands.
ACQUIRE: Acquire the guide or the sky background.
OPENLP: It opens the control loop
CLOSELP: It closes the AO loop in one of the possible modes. It optimize the loop parameters and leave the AO compensation closed upon termination.
SUSPEND: Suspend the AO loop and close the shutter
RESUME: Resume the AO loop compensation reusing the last known parameters

8. Instruments Subsystems
Telescope Control Software (TCS)
Main Tasks
Presetting, Tracking, Guiding, Active Optics Corrections
Interfaces (TIF)
Command Interface (SETUP, OFFSADG, SETINSD, OFFSGP, etc.)
One TIF front-end process per telescope focus
C/C++ Interface
Data Query Library
TCS FITS headers routines
Public OLDB
Others
The TCS Simulation package
Active Optics correct the shape of the primary mirror and the position of the secondary to remove optical aberrations like defocus and decentering coma.
Command SETINSD: Set the parameters of the instrument like the instrument name, mode and the vignetting area of the instrument field.
Command OFFSADG: Combined offset (stop the guiding, make the offset of the axis and resume the guiding)
Command OFFSGP: offset in RA and DEC for the guide probe without stopping the guiding. This command produces a movement in the focal plane that will be compensated by an offset in the M2 tip-tilt stage which will be finally offloaded to the telescope axis.

9. Instruments Subsystems
Interferometer Supervisor Software (ISS)
Main Features
Responsible for coordinating the whole VLTI, configuration of the array and acting as a high level interface toward the instruments.
Interfaces
Command Interface (SETUP, OFFSADG, SETINSD, OFFSGP, OFFSGUV, etc.)
C/C++ Interface
Data Query Library
TCS FITS headers routines
Public OLDB
Others
The TCS Simulation package
Command OFFSGUV: Issue a UVW rotation offset for a single telescope by moving the guide reference.

10. Instrumentation Software
Observation Software (OS)
Main Tasks:
Setup and coordination of various control systems.
Perform and monitor the observations reporting any unexpected problem.
Completion of the FITS images generated by the DCS with the information from all the subsystems.
How are all these systems coordinated to get the astronomical images?

11. Instrumentation Software
Software Architecture – Example
This figure shows the software architecture of a simple instrument.
This instrument software has 1 ICS dealing with all hardware functions, 1 NGC IR DCS for controlling a scientific detector,1 DCS for the control a technical CCD and TCS Simulation is running in the same machine for testing the interface with the instrument. OS receives the sequence of observations from the Broker for Observation Block (BOB) tool and forward the instructions to the subsystems. A typical observation is a sequence of commands SETUP, START and WAIT.

12. Instruments Subsystems
All instrument subsystem control software implement the SETUP command to configure one or several parameters using a list of pairs <keyword> <value>.
Additionally reference setup files can be used to reduce the number of parameters to be defined.
SETUP –file <reference file> -function <key1> <val> <key2> <val> ... <keyN> <val>
You don’t need to setup all parameters every time, they are kept in memory, subsystems only change parameters given as arguments, the rest remain untouched.
References files are important after the process startup or when changing from one mode to another.

13. Instruments Subsystems
All instrument subsystems software use hierarchical keywords to control
their behaviour and to report their status.
Format: <Cat> <Sub> [Sub] <Par>
E.g.
INS FILT NAME
TEL TARG ALPHA, TEL TARG DELTA
DET WIN UIT
Keywords are defined in dictionaries that specify the data interface of the
instrument data products. They should conform to the ESO official data
interface specification:
Data Interface Control Document (GEN-SPE-ESO )
The data interface control document indicates that instrument dictionaries need to be submitted for approval to DICB (Data Interface Control Board). Dictionaries should be approved before instruments are commissioned in Paranal.

14. Instrumentation Software
INS Framework
It provides a skeleton of the instrumentation software that can be customized by an instrument developer. The customization is done through configuration keywords.
Basic Principle of INS Framework: Generic severs whose behaviour is defined in configuration files.
INS Framework provides an excellent starting point for developers who normally have to code only what is specific for the instruments.
The INS Framework is very flexible but this has a cost
Complexity
INS Framework: It provides the skeleton of the instrumentation software that can be customized by an instrument developer. The customization is done through configuration keywords.
This is the basic principable of the INS framework.
Generic severs whose behavior is defined with a set of keywords.
The goal although in reality there is still many parts that need to be coded especially for the templates. Nevertheless INS Framework provides an excellent starting point for developers who normally have to code only what is specific for the instruments. This is a key point for the software maintenance at Paranal.

15. Instrumentation Software
INS Framework - Common Software
Base OS Stub Software (boss)
Base ICS Software (icb)
Build and Installation Utility (pkgin)
Image Real Time Display (rtd)
Start-up/Shutdown Tool (stoo)
Configuration Tool (ctoo)
FITS Handling (oslx/slx)
VLT Template Library (tpl)
VLTI Template Library (isstcl)
The INS framework is a set of tools including:
Boss: generic implementation of the observation software
ccb: Generic implementation of the ICS
rtd: Implementing the image real time display.
stoo: The startup tool for the instrument software
ctoo: Configuration tool
tpl: Template library simplifying the implementation of templates.
isstpl: The same but for the VLTI instruments.
clip: New package for online image processing.

16. Instrumentation Software
INS Framework – Template Instrument
Facility that can be used as a template to build an instrument control software. Its main purpose is twofold
It is aimed to help developers by providing pre-defined configurations and code examples for the complete instrument software.
It is used at ESO to validate the instrumentation common software.
Additionally the INS Framework includes the Template Instrument which is facility that can be used as a template to build an instrument control software. It has two main purpose:
It is aimed to help developers by providing pre-defined configurations and code examples for the complete instrument software. We will use the template instrument during our lab exercise so who are not familiar with it could learn how to use it.
But this is not the only purpose. We use it to validate the INS common software for every new VLTSW release.

17. Instrumentation Software
Software Packages
This figure shows an overview of the different packages of the instrumentation software including the external subsystems at the top and, the common software in the middle and the main subsystem at the bottom: OS, ICS, DCS, RTC, MS and OSS.
MS: It covers the all instrument configuration, troubleshooting and Technical Templates.
OSS: Consists of all the tools to support the users in the preparation of the observations.

18. Instrumentation Software
Templates
Observations are structured in blocks
OBD IP
TSF OB
SEQ
BOB
Templates is the interface between the users and the instrumentation software.
Instrument Templates are made of two parts: Template Signature File (TSF) which is the definition of all parameters that can be used within the template and the sequencer script which implement the behavior of the observation including the execution of one or more exposures.
The instrument Package (IP) contains all the TSF needed by the Astronomers to create observation blocks for a particular instrument. The IP is used by the Phase 2 Proposal Preparation Tool to produce and manage the observations.
OBD is the PAF file used to describe an OB
Template Signature File (TSF) defines all parameters that can be used within the template.
Sequencer Script implement the behavior of the observation including the execution of one or more exposures.

19. Instrumentation Software
Software Architecture – Example
This figure shows the software architecture as defined for a second generation instrument. Here it is possible to see the data flow starting with the observations defined by the astronomers which are executed by BOB sending the exposure sequence to the OS which forwards all the setting to the different subsystems.

20. Instrument Control Software - ICS
Software Architecture
ICS SW is split in two :
WS and LCU part
Two levels of simulation
LCU simulation
Hardware simulation
The ICS SW is split in two: WS and LCU part
The control over the whole hardware is disabled when the LCU is simulated.
When the hw is simulated the simulation is at the LCU level and only for some parts of the hardware.
When no simulation full hardware is enabled.

21. Instrument Control Software - ICS
WS Part
ICS WS front-end Process
Controls the global status of the ICS sw.
Forwards the setup commands to the LCU front-end processes.
Handles and coordinates the replies from the LCUs front-end processes.
Retrieves the status of all devices.
ICS WS Simulation Process
Simulates the LCU behaviour when sw is in LCU simulation.
Graphical Interface
Standalone engineering user interface.
Automatically generated from the instrument configuration.
Customizable for special needs.

22. Instrument Control Software - ICS
WS Part – Additional Features
Scanning: Facility to copy database attributes across different environments.
Example:
INS.SCAN.PERIOD 5
INS.SCAN1.DBFROM "<alias>TCS:coord.ra2000"
INS.SCAN1.DBTO
INS.SCAN2.DBFROM "<alias>TCS:coord.dec2000"
INS.SCAN2.DBTO
TCS LCU
AO ICS
LCU
TCS WS
INS WS
250ms (*)
(*): worse case for the CCS scanning.
CCS Scanning
Database write
TCS part
INS part

23. Instrument Control Software - ICS
WS Part – Additional Features
Assemblies
Simplify the interface with high level software
Perform complex setups including support for sequential order.
Example: from VISIR instrument
INS.ASSEMBLY "INS.SOURCE"; # Assembly FITS name
INS.ASSEMBLY5.HEADER "T"
INS.ASSEMBLY5.KEY1 "SKY"
INS.ASSEMBLY5.VAL1 "INS.TABL1.POS 120, INS.TABL2.POS 75"
INS.ASSEMBLY5.KEY2 "EXTENDED"
INS.ASSEMBLY5.VAL2 "INS.TABL1.POS 0 INS.TABL3.POS 22 INS.TABL2.POS 5"
INS.ASSEMBLY5.KEY3 "POINT"
INS.ASSEMBLY5.VAL3 "INS.TABL1.POS INS.TABL3.POS 15.0 INS.TABL2.POS 4.15"
In this example the data arrives to the IWS with the normal CCS scanning and the ICS process copy it every five seconds to the LCU.
The first assembly setup is done in two steps to avoid collisions.

24. Instrument Control Software - ICS
WS Part – Additional Features
Statistics for Sensors: ICS computes statistics on samples collected during an exposure . This works in connection with the CCS service (history tables) to record data which is used by ICS to compute the statistics.
keyword: INS.SENSORi.STATi <stat>
Example:
INS.SENSOR5.STAT3 "MEAN RMS"
ICS computes statistics on samples collected during an exposure. This works in connection with the CCS service to record data in history tables.

25. Instrument Control Software - ICS
LCU Part
LCU front-end Process (ic0lcuServer)
LCU Device Manager (ic0devServer)
What is a standard device?
LCU Special Device Manager
A Standard Device is a function which is already implemented within the ICS sw so there is no need to implement the code to control it. Instruments using standard devices just need to customize them using of configuration keywords. Standard devices are only possible because of the hardware standardization.

26. Instrument Control Software - ICS
LCU Part – Standard Devices Nb
Device Type
Interface
ICB Devices 2
Digital Control
Digital I/O Board
Lamps and Shutters 12
Motor
Motion Control
ADC, Derotator, Filter Wheel, Slit Wheel, Optical function with continuous position, etc. 9
Sensor
Serial Port
ESO cabinet cooling controller, OMEGA temperature controller, Humidity sensor, Ester DC24 temperature controller, etc. 1
Digial sensors
Other
TIM board
TIM board timer
2 devices for digital control: especially designed for lamps and shutters.
12 devices for motorized functions working with two motion control interface: Maccon and CAN RMC.
9 ICS Sensors devices allows the access to devices connected to a serial port implementing the protocols for each supported device.
1 Digital sensor allowing to access digital input signals connected to the VLT standard
digital I/O board.
1 timer device to program a TIM board timer to supply an external periodic signal.
Total 25

27. Instrument Control Software - ICS
LCU Part - Additional Features
Automatic Sensor State
Keyword: INS.CON.ONLINE
Motor Initialization Order
Keyword: INS.<dev>.INIALONE
Motor SW initialization Function
Keywords: *.INISWFCT
Pre and Post-Initialization and Movement Functions
Keywords: *.PREINIFCT, *.POSTINIFCT, *.PREFCT, *.POSFCT
Two-Step Movements
Keyword: INS.<dev>.TWOSTEP
Sensors can be placed automatically in state ONLINE after an LCU reboots. This is quite useful for instruments where it is needed to monitor the temperature of the detector all the time.
Some instruments might to need to initialize motors in a specific order. If this keyword is not present all devices are initialized in parallel. If each device contains that keyword, they are initialized one by one following the order as they appear in the configuration.
Some devices may need to perform special actions during the initialization or immediately before and after moving the motor. You can register the C functions that will be executed for those events.
Motors can be configured to move with normal and two step motions although two step motions parameters shall be specified in the motor configuration (MCM).

28. Instrumentation Software
New Features in VLT2009
NGC
INS common software is being updated to support NGC
CLIP
New standard package for online image processing.
Two new standard devices (ICS sensors)
Lakeshore (supports models 218,332 and 340)
Yokogawa (supports DX100/DX200 Series DAQ station)
CAN RMC support
You can try out some of these new features during the lab exercise.
We are currently working in the integration and support of NGC in the INS Framework. NGC infrared is already supported and you will use it during the lab exercise.
Common Library for Image Processing (CLIP) will be officially included in the next release.
The ICS will include the support for two new sensors
Support for CAN RMC