Enterprise CRM Solution

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Software for the Green Bank Telescope GBT Future
Instrumentation Workshop September 7, 2006 Amy
Shelton (ashelton_at_nrao.edu)
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Scope Resources

• 8 software engineers, 1 co-op, 1 manager GB and
  CV
• Control System (incl. new instrumentation),
  Observing System, Data Analysis, and RD Support
  Operational Support (for observing and data
  analysis), Maintenance, New Development
• Science Drivers
• Enable high-frequency operation of the telescope
  (PTCS project, instrumentation)
• Provide capabilities to generate new, unique
  science from the GBT
• 6-week development cycles in place since 2003
  (software only) and since 2004 (site-wide)
• New capabilities released after small, iterative
  rounds of integration testing (to ensure
  integrity of new code within system), regression
  testing (to ensure continuity of existing
  observational capabilities), and sponsor testing
  (scientific validation of new functionality).

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How is Our Software Organized?
GUIs
Application
Application Component
0..n
uses
HLAPIs
Expert User
Programmer
uses
uses
LLAPIs
Control System
Observed Data (in an EDF)
Real-Time Data (streaming)
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How is Our Software Organized?
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The GBT MC System Ygor

• The Ygor system has been designed for control and
  monitoring of the many pieces of hardware that
  make up the GBT.
• Hierarchical Coordinators Managers
• Each device on the GBT has a Manager, i.e. each
  receiver, each backend, etc.
• Each Manager has control capabilities Parameter
• Each Manager has monitoring capabilities
  Sampler
• Each Manager produces alarms/messages Message
• Managers can produce engineering FITS files
  FitsIO
• Ygor API Control and monitor interface to the
  telescope as defined by the C classes Panel and
  Monitor.
• The goal of this interface is to provide
  everything an observer needs and most of what an
  engineer or operator needs to interact with the
  telescope.
• Currently accessible directly by C classes
  through Panel and Monitor, by Glish's ygor class
  (used for debugging only), the enhanced tcl
  interpreter segeste (used by engineers and
  operators interface), and Grail (used by
  observers interface).

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The GBT MC System Ygor
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Interface Control Requirements to MC

1. There is a programmatic interface to the system.
   This interface may be via software protocols such
   as class linkage or module or Ethernet
   communications. A user interface is not
   considered to be a programmatic interface.
2. All settings (hardware or software) for a scan
   are described in a finite set of static
   variables, i.e., variables only need to be set
   once, prior to a scan.
3. Synchronous subsystems (subsystems which
   internally change state aligned to the start of a
   scan) start a scan according to a given time.
4. Synchronous subsystems can provide their earliest
   guaranteed scan start time on demand prior to a
   scan, but before acting on the commanded
   variables.

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The Observers Interface AstrID

• The Astronomer's Integrated Desktop (Astrid) is a
  single, unified workspace that incorporates, but
  does not replace, the suite of applications that
  can be used with the GBT.
• Observation Management - Observing API, a.k.a.
  Turtle
• Provides access to source information, antenna
  motion, configuration, and IF balancing via
  Scheduling Blocks (SBs).
• Scheduling Blocks contain an observing script and
  project metadata, which allows them to be
  archived and managed as descriptions of the
  observer's intent. The Observation Management
  application component helps you organize your
  Scheduling Blocks for a project, select and
  submit them to the telescope, and review what
  occurred during execution.
• Real-time Data Display, a.k.a. GFM
• Provides sub-scan-based display and analysis of
  GBT data, either in real-time as the data is
  being collected, or in an offline mode where it
  can be used to simply step through the sub-scans
  from an observation.
• GBT Status Display
• Displays various GBT specific parameters, sampled
  values and computed values.
• Product Page http//wiki.gb.nrao.edu/bin/view/Dat
  a/AstronomersIntegratedDesktop

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The Observers Interface AstrID
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GBT Data Reduction GBTIDL

• GBTIDL is an interactive package for reduction
  and analysis of spectral line data taken with the
  Green Bank Telescope (GBT).
• The package consists of
• A set of straightforward yet flexible
  calibration, averaging, and analysis procedures
  (the "GUIDE layer") modeled after the UniPOPS and
  CLASS data reduction philosophies,
• A customized plotter with many built-in
  visualization features
• Data I/O and toolbox functionality that can be
  used for more advanced tasks.
• GBTIDL makes use of data structures which can
  also be used to store intermediate results.
• Expert users can also access a toolbox of
  functions and procedures that operate on a lower
  level. Although this seems to happen rarely.
• The package consumes and produces data in GBT
  SDFITS format. Observers have uncalibrated SDFITS
  data available to them at the end of a run.
• GBTIDL can be run online, and have access to the
  most recent data coming off the telescope, or can
  be run offline on preprocessed SDFITS files.
• Easily allows user-contributed functionality.
• Product Page http//gbtidl.sourceforge.net

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GBTIDL GBT Data Reduction
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Plans for FY2007

• New devices go into service this fall
• Penn Array receiver
• Zpectrometer
• Dynamic Scheduling of GBT time.
• Improvements to SDFITS (our single dish FITS file
  production program)
• Support enhance of GBTIDL capabilities
• Support for Precision Telescope Control System
  (PTCS) project
• One major control system upgrade
• Reduce inter-scan latencies
• Unified messaging
• Creation of data streams