ICALEPCS2017 - List of Authors (Van den Heever, L.)

Paper	Title	Page
MOBPL03	The SKA Telescope Control System Guidelines and Architecture	34
	L. Pivetta SKA Organisation, Macclesfield, United Kingdom A. DeMarco ISSA, Msida, Malta S. Riggi INAF-OACT, Catania, Italy L. Van den Heever SKA South Africa, National Research Foundation of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa S. Vrcic NRC-Herzberg, Penticton, BC, Canada
	The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is an international collaboration aimed at building the world's largest radio telescope, with eventually over a square kilometre of collecting area, co-hosted by South Africa, for the mid-frequency arrays, and Australia for the low-frequency array. Since 2015 the SKA Consortia joined in a global effort to identify, investigate and select a single control system framework suitable for providing the functionalities required by the SKA telescope monitoring and control. The TANGO Controls framework has been selected and comprehensive work has started to provide telescope-wide detailed guidelines, design patterns and architectural views to build Element and Central monitoring and control systems exploiting the TANGO Controls framework capabilities.
	Talk as video stream: https://youtu.be/S-C9zPdmld0
	Slides MOBPL03 [6.980 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2017-MOBPL03
Export •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

THPHA066	MeerKAT Project Status Report	1531
	L.R. Brederode, L. Van den Heever SKA South Africa, National Research Foundation of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
	The MeerKAT radio telescope is currently in full production in South Africa's Karoo region and will be the largest and most sensitive radio telescope array in the centimeter wavelength regime in the southern skies until the SKA1 MID telescope is operational. This paper identifies the key telescope specifications, discusses the high-level architecture and current progress to meet the specifications. The MeerKAT Control and Monitoring subsystem is an integral component of the MeerKAT telescope that orchestrates all other subsystems and facilitates telescope level integration and verification. This paper elaborates on the development plan, processes and roll-out status of this vital component.
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2017-THPHA066
Export •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

THSH201	Integration of MeerKAT and SKA Telescopes using KATCP/Tango Translators	1964
	K. Madisa, N. Marais, A.J.T. Ramaila, L. Van den Heever SKA South Africa, National Research Foundation of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
	Funding: National Research Foundation of South Africa The MeerKAT radio telescope control system uses the KATCP protocol and technology stack developed at SKA SA. The future SKA project chose the TANGO controls technology stack. However, MeerKAT and phase 1 of the SKA-mid telescope are intimately related: SKA-mid will be co-located with MeerKAT at the SKA SA Karoo site; the first SKA-mid prototype dishes will be tested using MeerKAT systems; MeerKAT will later be incorporated into SKA-mid. To aid this interoperation, TANGO to KATCP and KATCP to TANGO translators were developed. A translator process connects to a device server of protocol A, inspects it and exposes an equivalent device server of protocol B. Client interactions with the translator are proxied to the real device. The translators are generic, needing no device-specific configuration. While KATCP and TANGO share many concepts, differences in representation fundamentally limits the abilities of a generic translator. Experience integrating TANGO devices into the MeerKAT and of exposing MeerKAT KATCP interfaces to TANGO based tools are presented. The limits of generic translation and strategies for handling complete use cases are discussed.
	Slides THSH201 [0.696 MB]
	Poster THSH201 [2.680 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2017-THSH201
Export •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

Paper

Title

Page

The SKA Telescope Control System Guidelines and Architecture

34

L. Pivetta
SKA Organisation, Macclesfield, United Kingdom
A. DeMarco
ISSA, Msida, Malta
S. Riggi
INAF-OACT, Catania, Italy
L. Van den Heever
SKA South Africa, National Research Foundation of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
S. Vrcic
NRC-Herzberg, Penticton, BC, Canada

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project is an international collaboration aimed at building the world's largest radio telescope, with eventually over a square kilometre of collecting area, co-hosted by South Africa, for the mid-frequency arrays, and Australia for the low-frequency array. Since 2015 the SKA Consortia joined in a global effort to identify, investigate and select a single control system framework suitable for providing the functionalities required by the SKA telescope monitoring and control. The TANGO Controls framework has been selected and comprehensive work has started to provide telescope-wide detailed guidelines, design patterns and architectural views to build Element and Central monitoring and control systems exploiting the TANGO Controls framework capabilities.

Talk as video stream: https://youtu.be/S-C9zPdmld0

Slides MOBPL03 [6.980 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2017-MOBPL03

Export •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

THPHA066

MeerKAT Project Status Report

1531

L.R. Brederode, L. Van den Heever
SKA South Africa, National Research Foundation of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa

The MeerKAT radio telescope is currently in full production in South Africa's Karoo region and will be the largest and most sensitive radio telescope array in the centimeter wavelength regime in the southern skies until the SKA1 MID telescope is operational. This paper identifies the key telescope specifications, discusses the high-level architecture and current progress to meet the specifications. The MeerKAT Control and Monitoring subsystem is an integral component of the MeerKAT telescope that orchestrates all other subsystems and facilitates telescope level integration and verification. This paper elaborates on the development plan, processes and roll-out status of this vital component.

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2017-THPHA066

Export •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

THSH201

Integration of MeerKAT and SKA Telescopes using KATCP/Tango Translators

1964

K. Madisa, N. Marais, A.J.T. Ramaila, L. Van den Heever
SKA South Africa, National Research Foundation of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa

Funding: National Research Foundation of South Africa
The MeerKAT radio telescope control system uses the KATCP protocol and technology stack developed at SKA SA. The future SKA project chose the TANGO controls technology stack. However, MeerKAT and phase 1 of the SKA-mid telescope are intimately related: SKA-mid will be co-located with MeerKAT at the SKA SA Karoo site; the first SKA-mid prototype dishes will be tested using MeerKAT systems; MeerKAT will later be incorporated into SKA-mid. To aid this interoperation, TANGO to KATCP and KATCP to TANGO translators were developed. A translator process connects to a device server of protocol A, inspects it and exposes an equivalent device server of protocol B. Client interactions with the translator are proxied to the real device. The translators are generic, needing no device-specific configuration. While KATCP and TANGO share many concepts, differences in representation fundamentally limits the abilities of a generic translator. Experience integrating TANGO devices into the MeerKAT and of exposing MeerKAT KATCP interfaces to TANGO based tools are presented. The limits of generic translation and strategies for handling complete use cases are discussed.

Slides THSH201 [0.696 MB]

Poster THSH201 [2.680 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2017-THSH201

Export •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)