Distributed object-oriented telescope control system for the GTC

Abstract

The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) project office is in charge of the construction of an optical/IR 10-meter class telescope at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, in Canary Islands. The conceptual design phase has been completed in summer 1997, and the design of the control system has already started its initial phases. Recently, the complexity of the control system for large telescopes has increased. More and more functions are computer controlled. Distributed computer systems are an effective architecture for these telescope control systems, but distributed semantics are more difficult to deal with. This gives complex architectures that are hard to develop and maintain. Additionally, technological change is continuous in computing, as the periodic reports of control system upgrade programs show. To keep these architectures in step with change is not an easy task. In the GTC control system these issues are being taken into account from the beginning of the project. This paper is focused no how recent advances in distributed computing can help to deal with these problems.