Design and development of the Supervisor software component for the ASTRI Mini-Array Cherenkov Camera

Abstract

The ASTRI Mini-Array is a project led by INAF to construct nine Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes in order to study gamma-ray sources emitting up to the multi-TeV energy band. These telescopes, which will be deployed at the Observatorio del Teide (Tenerife, Spain), will be based on the prototype ASTRI-Horn telescope, successfully tested since 2014 at the Serra La Nave Astronomical Station of the INAF Observatory of Catania. Each telescope will be equipped with the new version of the ASTRI Silicon Photo-Multiplier (SiPM) Cherenkov Camera. In order to monitor and control the different subsystems, a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system will be developed to manage a set of software components. Among them, the Cherenkov Camera Supervisor (CCS), a software subsystem of the Telescope Control System (TCS), is the software component to control each Cherenkov Camera. It realizes the interface between each Camera and the central SCADA software through the Alma Common Software (ACS). Furthermore, the CCS is based on the Open Platform Communications - Unified Architecture (OPC-UA) standard, in order to realize a client/server system. The server side is implemented in the software subsystem deployed on board the Camera, while the CCS contains the client side which uses the server services. This work presents the design and the technologies used to implement the CCS. It describes architecture and functionalities starting from the definition of the use cases and the system requirements. Moreover, the work reports the various phases of the CCS development.