MANIFEST instrument concept and related technologies

Goodwin, Michael; Brzeski, Jurek; Case, Scott W.; Colless, Matthew; Farrell, Tony; Gers, Luke; Gilbert, James; Heijmans, Jeroen; Hopkins, A. M.; Lawrence, Jon; Miziarski, Stan; Monnet, G.; Müller, Rolf; Saunders, W.; Smith, Greg; Tims, Julia; Waller, Lewis

doi:10.1117/12.925125

Cited by 24 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The Starbug is held to the glass field plate via a vacuum between the piezoceramic tubes ( Figure 3). Starbugs provide a multitude of additional advantages over existing multi-object positioners and therefore two instruments have been proposed: TAIPAN [2] and MANIFEST [3,4,5].…”

Section: Starbugsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this paper we document the initial efforts on the field configuration algorithm (FCA) for the new robotic positioner called "Starbugs" [1], in preparation for the planned TAIPAN (Transforming Astronomical Imaging surveys through Polychromatic Analysis of Nebulae) [2] and MANIFEST (Many Instrument Fiber System) [3,4,5] instruments. The FCA involves two key software sub-modules: allocation and routing, with optimisation to provide the fastest field configuration times that also do not significantly imprint artificial structure on observed target distributions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Field target allocation and routing algorithms for Starbugs

et al. 2014

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Starbugs are miniaturised robotic devices that position optical fibres over a telescope's focal plane in parallel operation for high multiplex spectroscopic surveys. The key advantage of the Starbug positioning system is its potential to configure fields of hundreds of targets in a few minutes, consistent with typical detector readout times. Starbugs have been selected as the positioning technology for the TAIPAN (Transforming Astronomical Imaging surveys through Polychromatic Analysis of Nebulae) instrument, a prototype for MANIFEST (Many Instrument Fiber System) on the GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope). TAIPAN consists of a 150-fibre Starbug positioner accessing the 6 degree field-ofview of the AAO's UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory. For TAIPAN, it is important to optimise the target allocation and routing algorithms to provide the fastest configurations times. We present details of the algorithms and results of the simulated performance.

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Section: Starbugsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field target allocation and routing algorithms for Starbugs

et al. 2014

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“…Starbugs [3,4] are the next concept in parallel robotic positioning to position optical fibres precisely at the focal plane to catch the light from objects and relay them through optical fibres to stable bench-mounted spectrographs. The AAO has proposed Starbugs as the fiber-positioner for TAIPAN [5] and MANIFEST [6,7] instruments. The goal of Starbugs is to reconfigure typical fields in a several minutes that are typically the downtime between fields to either move the telescope or read the detector.…”

Section: Starbug Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Miniaturized Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors for starbugs

et al. 2014

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The ability to position multiple miniaturized wavefront sensors precisely over large focal surfaces are advantageous to multi-object adaptive optics. The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) has prototyped a compact and lightweight Shack-Hartmann wavefront-sensor that fits into a standard Starbug parallel fibre positioning robot. Each device makes use of a polymer coherent fibre imaging bundle to relay an image produced by a microlens array placed at the telescope focal plane to a re-imaging camera mounted elsewhere. The advantages of the polymer fibre bundle are its high-fill factor, high-throughput, low weight, and relatively low cost. Multiple devices can also be multiplexed to a single lownoise camera for cost efficiencies per wavefront sensor. The use of fibre bundles also opens the possibility of applications such as telescope field acquisition, guiding, and seeing monitors to be positioned by Starbugs. We present the design aspects, simulations and laboratory test results.

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“…The characterization data utilized in this paper was attained in 2012, while [1] was being written. Great progress on Starbugs eventually lead to serious discussion of tube design for MANIFEST (the Many Instrument Fiber System), which requires various tube models varying in diameter and weight [2]. The results in this paper present some key parameters that will decide what tubes are coupled together to perform a specific task.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beating the heat! automated characterization of piezoelectric tubes for Starbugs

et al. 2014

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The Australian Astronomical Observatory has extensively prototyped a new robotic positioner to allow simultaneous positioning of optical fibers at the focal plane called 'Starbugs'. The Starbug devices each consist of two concentric piezoelectric tubes that 'walk' the optical fiber over the focal plane to accuracy of several microns. Ongoing research has led to the development of several Starbug prototypes, but lack of performance data has hampered further progress in the design of the Starbug positioners and the support equipment required to power and control them. Furthermore, Starbugs have been selected for the TAIPAN instrument, a prototype for MANIFEST on the GMT. A need now arises to measure and characterize 100's of piezoelectric tubes before full scale production of Starbugs for TAIPAN. The manual measurements of these piezoelectric tubes are a time consuming process taking several hours. Therefore, a versatile automated system is needed to measure and characterize these tubes in the laboratory before production of Starbugs. We have solved this problem with the design of an automated LabVIEW application that significantly reduces test times to several minutes. We present the various design aspects of the automation system and provide analyses of example piezoelectric tubes for Starbugs.

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MANIFEST instrument concept and related technologies

Cited by 24 publications

References 13 publications

Field target allocation and routing algorithms for Starbugs

Field target allocation and routing algorithms for Starbugs

Miniaturized Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors for starbugs

Beating the heat! automated characterization of piezoelectric tubes for Starbugs

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