RoboDIMM Package

The RoboDIMM system is delivered as a fully operational turnkey product, complete with computers, pre-configured software packages and clamshell dome.

The RoboDIMM system includes:

• 7 foot AstroHaven clamshell dome, weather-proof
• Equatorial telescope mounting, AstroPhysics GTO1200, including pier, board computer, tracking motors and home position sensors for automatic recalibration.
• Optical Tube Assembly, including pupil mask and adjustable optical wedges (to split the star light in separate beams). 8" primary mirror, SCT.
• IP66-rated enclosure located within the dome, containing an industrial computer which controls all hardware and performs the seeing calculations
• 2 cooled CCD camera's. One for taking seeing measurements (SBIG ST5c), the other for remote monitoring over LAN or Internet
• Optional: WiFi access point for communication with nearby buildings
• Optional: Automatic Weather Station, equipped with the following sensors:
  • Wind speed
  • Wind gusts
  • Wind direction
  • Barometric pressure
  • Relative humidity
  • Air temperature
  • Ground/underground temperature
  • Pluviometry
  • Solar meter
• Optional: GPRS unit as backup data communication link
• Optional: Solar panels & deep cycle batteries

Key features

• Fully autonomous device
• Fast, can do one seeing measurement (based on 200 seperate exposures) every 25 to 30 seconds.
• With good alignment, the tracking accuracy (open loop) is well below 30 arc seconds within one hour, using both the internally software (mounting) and the RoboDIMM software to enhance accuracy.
• RoboDIMM can switch to a new target star and restart measurements within 60 seconds
• The telescope mount can recalibrate/realign itself after loosing its target star, without the need of an operator.
• RoboDIMM contains a highly configurable filter for the detection of star spots that deviate too much.
• RoboDIMM stores all centroids continuously, which makes it possible to recalculate seeing values from the past, for example with a different set of filter settings.
• An 'emulation mode' allows the operator to test changes in configuration parameters, filter settings and hardware, by simulating the telescope mount, CCD camera and sky (artificial stars are generated)
• Whenever intervention from an operator is required, RoboDIMM alerts the operator by using e-mail messages, syslog-messages and sounds.
• RoboDIMM contains an Applications Programming Interface (API) to help software developers enable their applications to control RoboDIMM. For this purpose a TCP/IP connection to the RoboDIMM software can be established.
• An NTP server is used to keep the system clock within one milliseconds of UTC.

Data communication

All sensors, needed to monitor and control the various hardware components, are connected to a modular terminal I/O bus system (Ethernet based), using adapter units. These modular units (e.g. rs232 to TCP/IP and vice versa, USB to TCP/IP, etc) are used to adapt the various data flows from each peripheral device to TCP/IP. This makes it very easy to add an unlimited number of other sensor modules, actuators, or other devices later on.  Most of the I/O modules are IP67-compliant.
An extendible standard Ethernet switch or hub will be used to connect all modules to the Ethernet network.

The central computer, located within the dome, is connected to all peripherals, either via permanent cables or via wireless data communication methods. The computer is used to process the incoming data streams and store the results. It will use data communication over TCP/IP to connect with most of the peripherals, using an Ethernet bus within the dome. TCP/IP is also used to communicate with the system remotely, for example when connecting to the RoboDIMM from within another building.

RoboDIMM technical details

For more technical details on the algorithms and techniques we use in our RoboDIMM, please click here.