KMOS housekeeping electronics and its functions

Nagaraja Bezawada; Brian Woodward; Phil Rees

doi:10.1117/12.790389

10 July 2008 KMOS housekeeping electronics and its functions

Nagaraja Bezawada, Brian Woodward, Phil Rees

Proceedings Volume 7014, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy II; 70143P (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.790389
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2008, Marseille, France

Abstract

KMOS is a second generation near infrared multi-object spectrograph instrument for the VLT. It is a highly complex astronomical instrument with over 60 cryo-mechanisms deploying pickoff arms, moving filter wheels and detector focus stages. The instrument houses three identical sections each consisting of 8 pickoff arms, 2 filter wheels, 8 integral field units feeding a spectrograph and its detector systems. The housekeeping electronics provides a semi-automation of the cryostat functions such as pump down, cool down and warm up sequences, vacuum and temperature measurement and control etc. The infrastructure electronics is responsible for the safe operation of the instrument. It monitors the various cryostat conditions, takes automatic corrective actions under faulty conditions and raises alarms when a manual intervention is needed. This semi-automation design is aimed at not only minimising the risk of instrument damage, but also takes into account the safety of instrument manual handling. This paper describes the design of the instrument infrastructure electronics and details its functions such as semi-automation of the cryostat procedures, housekeeping diagnostics, automatic corrective actions under faulty conditions, scheme of alarm and warnings, detector thermal protection etc. and presents the associated interfaces to the control electronics and the cable co-rotator.

Citation Download Citation

Nagaraja Bezawada, Brian Woodward, and Phil Rees "KMOS housekeeping electronics and its functions", Proc. SPIE 7014, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy II, 70143P (10 July 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.790389

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