Extremely Large Telescope

UK involvement in the ELT

The Telescope  The Science

Control

Assembled E-ELT mirror segments undergoing testing (Credit: ESO/H.-H. Heyer)

  • The E-ELT is a huge control challenge!
  • The main control system performance requirements are for robustness, scalability, maintainability and cost effectiveness.
  • The development of the E-ELT control system is based on the interplay between four different development areas:
  • Firstly the E-ELT hardware and software solutions will be deployed in the upgrade of the VLT control system (Paranal Observatory).
  • Manufacturing of various telescope components that include control system elements will be carried out in parallel to ESO’s development of the supervision, control and acquisition software. To facilitate the work of industrial partners, inspection, quality control and integration tests will be carried out by ESO on a system simulator.
  • The ESO software quality assurance process will be complimented by formal independent Software verification and validation by industry experts.
  • Lastly technical time is being used on VLT and GTC (La Palma) to understand, prototype, test and validate the novel control strategies and algorithms required for segmented and adaptive telescopes.