ICALEPCS2013 - List of Authors (Mannetta, M.)

Paper

Title

Page

An OPC-UA Based Architecture for the Control of the ESPRESSO Spectrograph @ VLT

70

R. Cirami, V. Baldini, I. Coretti, S. Cristiani, P. Di Marcantonio, M. Mannetta, P. Santin
INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy
D. Mégevand
Université de Genève, Observatoire Astronomique, Versoix, Switzerland
F. Zerbi
INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy

ESPRESSO is a fiber-fed, cross-dispersed, high-resolution echelle spectrograph for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT). The instrument is designed to combine incoherently the light coming from up to 4 VLT Unit Telescopes. To ensure maximum stability the spectrograph is placed in a thermal enclosure and a vacuum vessel. Abandoning the VME-based technologies previously adopted for the ESO VLT instruments, the ESPRESSO control electronics has been developed around a new concept based on industrial COTS PLCs. This choice ensures a number of benefits like lower costs and less space and power consumption requirement. Moreover it makes possible to structure the whole control electronics in a distributed way using building blocks available commercially off-the-shelf and minimizing in this way the need for custom solutions. The main adopted PLC brand is Beckhoff, whose product lineup satisfies the requirements set by the instrument control functions. OPC-UA is the chosen communication protocol between the PLCs and the instrument control software, which is based on the VLT Control Software package.

Slides MOMIB07 [0.419 MB]

Poster MOMIB07 [32.149 MB]

TUPPC054

A PLC-Based System for the Control of an Educational Observatory

691

V. Baldini, R. Cirami, I. Coretti, P. Di Marcantonio, S. Galeotta, G. Iafrate, M. Mannetta, P. Santin
INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy

An educational project that aims to involve young students in astronomical observations has been developed in the last decade at the Basovizza branch station of the INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Trieste. The telescope used is a 14” reflector equipped with a robotic Paramount ME equatorial mount and placed in a non-automatic dome. The new-developing control system is based on Beckhoff PLC. The control system will mainly allow to remotely control the three-phase synchronous motor of the dome, the switching of the whole instrumentation and the park of the telescope. Thanks to the data coming from the weather sensor, the PLC will be able to ensure the safety of the instruments. A web interface is used for the communication between the user and the instrumentation. In this paper a detailed description of the whole PLC-based control system architecture will be presented.

Poster TUPPC054 [3.671 MB]

Paper	Title	Page
MOMIB07	An OPC-UA Based Architecture for the Control of the ESPRESSO Spectrograph @ VLT	70
	R. Cirami, V. Baldini, I. Coretti, S. Cristiani, P. Di Marcantonio, M. Mannetta, P. Santin INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy D. Mégevand Université de Genève, Observatoire Astronomique, Versoix, Switzerland F. Zerbi INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy
	ESPRESSO is a fiber-fed, cross-dispersed, high-resolution echelle spectrograph for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT). The instrument is designed to combine incoherently the light coming from up to 4 VLT Unit Telescopes. To ensure maximum stability the spectrograph is placed in a thermal enclosure and a vacuum vessel. Abandoning the VME-based technologies previously adopted for the ESO VLT instruments, the ESPRESSO control electronics has been developed around a new concept based on industrial COTS PLCs. This choice ensures a number of benefits like lower costs and less space and power consumption requirement. Moreover it makes possible to structure the whole control electronics in a distributed way using building blocks available commercially off-the-shelf and minimizing in this way the need for custom solutions. The main adopted PLC brand is Beckhoff, whose product lineup satisfies the requirements set by the instrument control functions. OPC-UA is the chosen communication protocol between the PLCs and the instrument control software, which is based on the VLT Control Software package.
	Slides MOMIB07 [0.419 MB]
	Poster MOMIB07 [32.149 MB]

TUPPC054	A PLC-Based System for the Control of an Educational Observatory	691
	V. Baldini, R. Cirami, I. Coretti, P. Di Marcantonio, S. Galeotta, G. Iafrate, M. Mannetta, P. Santin INAF-OAT, Trieste, Italy
	An educational project that aims to involve young students in astronomical observations has been developed in the last decade at the Basovizza branch station of the INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Trieste. The telescope used is a 14” reflector equipped with a robotic Paramount ME equatorial mount and placed in a non-automatic dome. The new-developing control system is based on Beckhoff PLC. The control system will mainly allow to remotely control the three-phase synchronous motor of the dome, the switching of the whole instrumentation and the park of the telescope. Thanks to the data coming from the weather sensor, the PLC will be able to ensure the safety of the instruments. A web interface is used for the communication between the user and the instrumentation. In this paper a detailed description of the whole PLC-based control system architecture will be presented.
	Poster TUPPC054 [3.671 MB]