Adapted Fuzzy Controller for Astronomical Telescope Tracking

This paper presents a novel application of fuzzy logic (FL) controller driven by an adaptive fuzzy set (AFS) for position tracking of the telescope driven by electric motor. Also, the proposed FL controller, driven by AFS, is compared with a classical FL control, driven by a static fuzzy set (SFS). Both FL controllers algorithm use the position error and its rate of change as an input vector. The mathematical model of the telescope driven by electric motor is highly nonlinear differential equations. Therefore the use of the artificial intelligent controller, such as FL is much better than the conventional controller, to cover a wide range of operating conditions. So, the output of FL control is utilized to force the electric drives, of the telescope, to satisfy a perfect matching of the predefined desired position of the telescope arms. Both of FL controllers, using AFS and SFS, are simulated and tested when the system is subjected to a step change in reference value. In addition, these simulation results are compared with the conventional Proportional-Derivative (PD) controller, driven by fixed gain. The proposed FL, using an adaptive fuzzy set, improve the dynamic response of the overall system by improving the damping coefficient and decreasing the rise time and settling time compared with other two controllers.     

斜轴式望远镜动力学建模与鲁棒控制

斜轴式望远镜是一种新颖的望远镜结构, 其独特的结构设计更适合南极等极端气候环境, 但目前国内外缺乏针对斜轴式望远镜详细的动力学建模与控制研究. 提出一套斜轴式望远镜动力学建模与鲁棒控制方法, 首先, 对斜轴式望远镜进行了动力学分析, 采用拉格朗日法建立望远镜2自由度刚体模型; 接着, 结合望远镜驱动系统的柔性和所受干扰, 完成了斜轴式望远镜的干扰情况下刚柔耦合系统数学模型的推导; 然后, 针对抗干扰问题, 根据所建数学模型, 设计了基于干扰观测器的滑模控制器, 对于所受干扰进行抑制, 实现了斜轴式望远镜的鲁棒控制; 最后, 仿真结果显示, 在考虑模型的非线性外部干扰的情况下, 相比于传统的比例-积分-微分控制器, 基于干扰观测器的滑模控制器使得系统具有更好的动态性能和抗干扰特性.     

乌站25m射电望远镜天线效率自动测量的软件实现

经常测量天线参数对于改进天线性能以及联测和单天线观测的数据处理都是至关重要的。以前的记录仪手工测量方式,非常繁琐和低效率,不利于对测量结果进行有效的统一管理和深入分析。根据天线效率的测量为例,在PC和Windows2000/XP软硬件平台下统一编程,集成实现天线参数测量的自动化、操作的人性化以及数据分析和曲线拟合的可视化。这将大大降低人工,提高测量效率,更好地保证天线的可靠、高精度的运行以及观测数据的处理。     

Adaptive Optics on Large Telescopes

Observations withground based telescopes suffer from atmospheric turbulence.Independent of the telescope size the angular resolution inthe visible is equivalent to that of a telescope with adiameter of 10–20 cm. This effect is caused by the turbulentmixing of air with different temperatures in the atmosphere.Thus, the perfect plane wave from a star at infinity isaberrated before it enters the telescope. In the following,we will discuss the physical background of imaging throughturbulence, using Kolmogorov statistics, and the differenttechniques to sense and to correct the wave-front aberrationswith adaptive optics. The requirements for the control loop ofan adaptive optics system are discussed including formulas forthe limiting magnitude of the guide star as a function of thewave-front sensing method, of the quality of the wave-frontsensor camera, and of the degree of correction. Finally, ashort introduction to deformable mirror technology will begiven followed by the presentation of a new method to measureand to distinguish individual turbulent layers in order toincrease the isoplanatic angle.     

Investigating the efficiency of the Beijing Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera(BFOSC) of the Xinglong 2.16-m reflector

The Beijing Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera(BFOSC) is one of the most important instruments operating in conjunction with the 2.16-m telescope at Xinglong Observatory. Every year there are~20 SCI-papers published based on observational data acquired with this telescope. In this work,we have systemically measured the total efficiency of the BFOSC that operates as part of the 2.16-m reflector, based on observations of two ESO flux standard stars. We have obtained the total efficiencies of the BFOSC instrument of different grisms with various slit widths in almost all ranges, and analyzed factors which effect the efficiency of this telescope and spectrograph. For astronomical observers, the result will be useful for them to select a suitable slit width, depending on their scientific goals and weather conditions during observations. For technicians, the result will help them to systemically identify the real efficiency of the telescope and spectrograph, and to further improve the total efficiency and observing capacity of the telescope technically.     

NLST: India's National Large Solar Telescope

This article introduces the new Indian 2 m telescope which has been designed by MT Mechatronics in a detailed conceptual design study for the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore. We describe the background of the project and the science goals which shall be addressed with this telescope. NLST is a solar telescope with high optical throughput and will be equipped with an integrated Adaptive Optics system. It is optimized for a site with the kind of seeing and wind conditions as they are expected at a lake site in the Himalayan mountains. The telescope can also be used for certain night time applications. We also give the scientific rationale for this class of telescope (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The Data Flow, from Observations to the Archive: Simulating the Case of TNG

The telescopes of the new generation allow an archive to be built as a section of data management; nevertheless, careful planning is needed and data handling needs to be designed together with the control system of the telescope itself, both for space-borne and for ground-based facilities. Simulations are essential to understand how observations will be archived, and to build and test an archiving system capable of dealing efficiently with the expected data flow.The TNG (Telescopio Nazionale Galileo) will be one of the first ground-based observing facilities where archiving of both technical and scientific data will be made directly at the telescope as a natural extension of the data handling chain. The results obtained testing the prototype implementation of the archive system at the TNG with a simulated data flow will be shown.     

First light for the sodium laser guide star adaptive optics system on the Lijiang 1.8m telescope

A first generation sodium Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics System(LGS-AOS) was developed and integrated into the Lijiang 1.8 m telescope in 2013. The LGS-AOS has three sub-systems:(1) a 20 W long pulsed sodium laser,(2) a 300-millimeter-diameter laser launch telescope, and(3) a 37-element compact adaptive optics system. On 2014 January 25, we obtained high resolution images of an mV8.18 star,HIP 43963, during the first light of the LGS-AOS. In this paper, the sodium laser, the laser launch telescope,the compact adaptive optics system and the first light results will be presented.     

基于以太网的射电天文制冷接收机的监视系统

制冷接收机是射电望远镜的核心设备,它是否正常工作直接决定望远镜观测的效果。制冷接收机的制冷温度和杜瓦真空度是反映接收机是否正常工作的最重要、最直接的指标之一。因此实现制冷接收机制冷温度和杜瓦真空度的远程实时监控,及时了解接收机是否正常工作对保证射电望远镜正常运行、提高观测效率有重要意义。为乌鲁木齐天文站25m射电望远镜1.3cm制冷接收机研制的一套基于单片机和以太网的数据采集和数据传输的远程监视系统,实现了制冷接收机制冷温度和杜瓦真空度的远程实时监控。该系统采用了美国ATMEL公司生产的8位单片机AVR ATmega16、Microchip Technology公司生产的ENC28J60以及MAXIM公司生产的MAX7219,实现对射电天文制冷接收机制冷温度和杜瓦真空度的数据采集,并利用以太网传输数据实现了远程实时监控接收机的制冷状态。阐述了以太网数据采集及远程监控电路的设计原理及其实现方法。该系统首次在国内大型射电望远镜上实现了对制冷接收机工作状态的远程实时监控,对于保证乌鲁木齐天文站25m射电望远镜1.3cm波段的观测效果有重要作用。     

基于Mark5B＋GPU脉冲星观测系统

云南天文台40m射电望远镜进行的脉冲星观测数据量巨大,必须实现数据的实时处理,否则将会产生海量的数据积压.为实现这一目标,采用图形处理器架构,对Mark5B数据进行解码、消色散、折叠等处理.实验结果表明,对以1s8MB的实时采样,可以在0.51s内处理完成,从而实现了实时处理的要求.首先介绍这一观测系统各部分的图形处理器实现,然后相对于传统中央处理器构架,对各部分的运算速度进行了详细的对比.针对时间开销最大的消色散部分,分析了单次傅里叶变换的数据量大小对执行效率的影响.从系统最终的输出轮廓和柱状图上可以看到实时处理的结果符合要求.最后对存在的问题和未来的工作进行了讨论.     

大口径射电望远镜电磁兼容评估技术研究

电磁兼容性是设备或系统的重要性能指标, 也是保障系统的工作效能和提高系统可靠性的重要因素. 大口径射电望远镜运行阶段, 台址周围无线电业务及内部潜在的电磁干扰会降低观测系统灵敏度、影响天文观测的质量. 本论文针对拟建的新疆110 m全向可动射电望远镜(Qi Tai raido Telescope, QTT)开展了系统电磁兼容评估技术及控制方法研究, 具有重要的工程应用价值. 首先, 依据现有电波环境测量方法的不足, 深入分析了仪器设备的关键参数配置方法及测量时间计算方法, 采用Y因子法校准测量数据, 提出一种准实时电波环境测量方法. 面向高重复性宽带频谱, 分析了宽带频谱信号和噪声特征, 结合标准差理论, 提出一种基于邻值比较的信噪分离方法, 并采用邻值统计方法优化关键参数, 提高信噪分离精度. 针对QTT台址, 开发了自动化电波环境监测系统, 该系统6 GHz以下频段系统增益大于40 dB, 系统噪声系数小于2 dB, 测量不确定度小于1.49 dB, 具有极高的系统灵敏度和测量精度; 分析了频谱监测数据流, 设计了基于HDF5 (Hierarchical Data Format version 5)的数据存储格式, 开发了自动化电波环境测量和监控软件及数据处理软件. 依据QTT台址长期监测数据, 评估分析了台址电磁环境、主要干扰源特征及其影响. 其次, 提出大口径射电望远镜馈源口面干扰电平限值量化方法, 建立了基于台址地形的电波传播模型, 分析了现有电波传播模型的优缺点及适应性, 结合QTT台址实际地形及地质特征, 采用Longley-Rice和Two-Ray电波传播模型, 预测分析了QTT台址潜在干扰区域电磁干扰达到射电望远镜的电波路径衰减, 结合大口径射电望远镜天线增益量化方法, 提出设备所在位置干扰电平限值量化方法, 运用该方法对QTT台址潜在干扰区域的干扰电平限值进行量化. 依据设备所在位置干扰电平限值, 调研分析了国内外军用、民用电磁兼容测量标准, 结合电磁干扰对射电天文观测的影响, 提出一种大口径射电望远镜电磁兼容控制方法, 解决了现有电波暗室测量系统无法直接测量评估电子设备电磁兼容的问题, 该电磁兼容控制方法计划应用于QTT建设及运行阶段, 确保系统拥有良好的电磁兼容性. 最后, 依据QTT台址潜在干扰区域干扰电平限值, 结合典型电子设备电磁辐射频谱, 分析了QTT电磁兼容设计需求, 提出电磁兼容设计初步方案. 另外, 针对台址建筑设施内的中低电磁辐射干扰源, 提出一种低成本建筑屏蔽方法, 应用于QTT台址现有建筑.     

Prospects for astronomical development in South Africa

Because of its geographical location and (astronomically) excellent climate South Africa can make an unique contribution to international astronomical research. An assessment of recent developments in telescope technology has shown that an advanced technology telescope of 4m-class can be constructed which will out-perform most existing 4m-class telescopes. Detailed consideration is given to the construction of such a telescope for optical/infrared astronomy, the new science that this will enable and the selection of a site of sufficiently good quality to justify the erection of such a telescope. If a telescope of this nature is sited in southern Africa it would provide the premier astronomical facility in Africa for decades to come.     

Scintillation Observations of Strong Northern Pulsars

Scintillation of pulsar radio emission provides information about the interstellar medium along the path to the pulsar and the velocities of pulsars. It also affects the precision of pulse timing observations. Using a pulsar timing system developed at the Urumqi Astronomical Observatory25 m telescope, we observed diffractive scintillation dynamic spectra for several strong northern pulsars. This paper introduces the observing system and discusses the observational results. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Receiver System for the Ooty Wide Field Array

The legacy Ooty Radio Telescope (ORT) is being reconfigured as a 264-element synthesis telescope, called the Ooty Wide Field Array (OWFA). Its antenna elements are the contiguous 1.92 m sections of the parabolic cylinder. It will operate in a 38-MHz frequency band centred at 326.5 MHz and will be equipped with a digital receiver including a 264-element spectral correlator with a spectral resolution of 48 kHz. OWFA is designed to retain the benefits of equatorial mount, continuous 9-hour tracking ability and large collecting area of the legacy telescope and use of modern digital techniques to enhance the instantaneous field-of-view by more than an order of magnitude. OWFA has unique advantages for contemporary investigations related to large scale structure, transient events and space weather watch. In this paper, we describe the RF subsystems, digitizers and fibre optic communication of OWFA and highlight some specific aspects of the system relevant for the observations planned during the initial operation.     

Development of solar scintillometer

The index of scintillation measurement is a good parameter to compare different sites for image quality or ‘seeing’. We have developed a scintillometer, which is deployed on the high resolution SPAR telescope in the island site of Udaipur Solar Observatory, for the site characterization to specify the proposed MAST (Multi Application Solar Telescope). The scintillometer consists of a miniature telescope, termed as micro telescope (4 mm aperture, 15 mm focal length) mounted on a drive which tracks the Sun continuously, associated amplifiers and a data acquisition system. A photodiode is used as the detector. The telescope along with detector was obtained from National Solar Observatory (NSO), and is similar to the one used for Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) site survey. At USO we developed the amplifier and data acquisition system for the scintillometer. A 24-bit analog to digital converter based system was designed, assembled, tested and used as the data acquisition system (DAS). In this paper, we discuss the instrumentation and present the initial results.     

Search for possible exomoons with the FAST telescope

Our knowledge of the solar system encourages us to believe that we might expect exomoons to be present around some known exoplanets. With present hardware and existing optical astronomy methods, we do not expect to be able to find exomoons for at least 10 years, and even then, it will be a hard task to detect them. Using data from the Exoplanet Orbit Database(EOD) we find stars with Jovian exoplanets within 50 light years. Most of them will be fully accessible by the new radio telescope, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope(FAST), under construction which is now in the test phase. We suggest radio astronomy based methods to search for possible exomoons around two exoplanets.     

The Dynamic Spectrum of Interplanetary Scintillation: First Solar Wind Observations on LOFAR

The LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) is a next-generation radio telescope which uses thousands of stationary dipoles to observe celestial phenomena. These dipoles are grouped in various ‘stations’ which are centred on the Netherlands with additional ‘stations’ across Europe. The telescope is designed to operate at frequencies from 10 to 240 MHz with very large fractional bandwidths (25?–?100 %). Several ‘beam-formed’ observing modes are now operational and the system is designed to output data with high time and frequency resolution, which are highly configurable. This makes LOFAR eminently suited for dynamic spectrum measurements with applications in solar and planetary physics. In this paper we describe progress in developing automated data analysis routines to compute dynamic spectra from LOFAR time–frequency data, including correction for the antenna response across the radio frequency pass-band and mitigation of terrestrial radio-frequency interference (RFI). We apply these data routines to observations of interplanetary scintillation (IPS), commonly used to infer solar wind velocity and density information, and present initial science results.     

LAMOST网络控制系统结构

LAMOST(大型多天体分光望远镜)建成后将成为世界上视场最大、光谱观测效率最高的4m级口径以上的光学望远镜。它将要同时高效地观测4000颗星的光谱,这对网络控制系统的设计是巨大的挑战。该文主要从LAMOST网络控制系统构建的角度介绍了系统如何在大数据量、多任务的情况下实现各子系统控制、环境监测、授时和无线远程监控等功能,叙述了在该系统中运用的实时分布式操作系统、实时数据库,全球定位系统(GPS)和全球移动通讯系统(GSM)等多项技术．     

施密特望远镜CCD BVRI测光系统的初步研究

本文利用Thomson CCD,在北京天文台兴隆站施密特望远镜上进行BVRI四色测光,得到了该测光系统的颜色转换方程,并对所得结果进行了分析探讨。同时论证了BAO-CCD系统在施密特望远镜上用于测光的可行性。     

European Solar Telescope: Progress status

In this paper, the present status of the development of the design of the European Solar Telescope is described. The telescope is devised to have the best possible angular resolution and polarimetric performance, maximizing the throughput of the whole system. To that aim, adaptive optics and multi‐conjugate adaptive optics are integrated in the optical path. The system will have the possibility to correct for the diurnal variation of the distance to the turbulence layers, by using several deformable mirrors, conjugated at different heights. The present optical design of the telescope distributes the optical elements along the optical path in such a way that the instrumental polarization induced by the telescope is minimized and independent of the solar elevation and azimuth. This property represents a large advantage for polarimetric measurements. The ensemble of instruments that are planned is also presented (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)