New Control System for the 30m Telescope: Status Report

Work on our plans for a New Control System (NCS) for the 30m telescope continues, and in many areas we have reached decisions about priorities, features, and solutions. Comments and input from all users and friends of the 30m are always very welcome and important.

Details and regular updates can be found on the WWW pages for this project which are situated at http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M.

In the near future many older hardware components of the control system for the 30m telescope will be replaced by modern equipment. We take this as an occasion to consider very broadly the desired features of a new system including:

• observing modes,
• data acquisition, processing and archiving,
• well-documented modular system design to facilitate maintenance and further development,

while maintaining the many successful features of the current system. We expect that a core of high priority user features will form essential parts of the new system:

• observations with focal-plane arrays,
• continuous data taking, e.g., fast on-the-fly observations,
• remote observing, service observing, and flexibility of observing and scheduling.

Linked to these core features is a need to:

• foresee very large data rates,
• optimize the standard observing modes and make them easy to use,
• automate where possible.

Major tasks to be achieved for this project then are:

• replace the old hardware and operating systems, in particular:
  • CAMAC by VME,
  • Vax/VMS by solutions using Unix, in particular Linux,
• design and implement a new, modular control system,
• improve current observing modes in terms of flexibility, convenience, and data quality,
• design, test, and implement new observing modes,
• support all new and old features through a unified, flexible and easy user interface,
• support the new features of the control and data acquisition system by corresponding new developments in the data processing software,
• prepare the system for foreseeable new hardware, e.g., in the areas of antenna sub-components, receivers, and backends.

Observing modes and user commands for the New Control System are described in:

``New Control System for the 30m Telescope: Specifications: Observing Modes and User Commands''
http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M/ Specifications/Spec_ OM
Revision: Spec_Observing_Modes, V 1.0
Date: 2000-09-18

The current version still contains open questions, but in the meantime we have reached decisions on these and on priorities; they will be included in the next revision of this document (V 1.1). Our discussions and decisions on several specific and technical issues important for the NCS are reported in documents by working groups (WG). They are posted at the same WWW site, in directories dedicated to each WG topic, and include:

``NCS 30m: WG Data''
http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M/wg_data/

Of particular interest for users of the 30m is probably the document on raw data, ``on-line'' data processing, data format and archiving:

``DATA: Requirements, Specifications'':
http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M/wg_data/ReqSpec/
Revision: ReqSpec.html , V 1.01
Date: 2000-11-07

``NCS 30m: WG Frontend and Backend Control''
http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M/wg_fe_be/

``NCS 30m: WG Telescope (Antenna) Control''
http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M/wg_telescope/

``NCS 30m: WG Synchronization''
http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M/wg_synchron/

``NCS 30m: WG System Architecture''
http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M/wg_sa/

``NCS 30m: WG VME Computer Systems''
http://www.iram.es/FutureControl30M/wg_vcs/

Hans UNGERECHTS