Michael Browne

From Euro50 towards a European ELT

With Euro50 as a convenient telescope laboratory, the Euro50 team has continued development aiming at a European extremely large telescope (ELT). Here, we give a progress report. The needs of science and instrumentation are briefly discussed as is the importance of photometric stability and precision. Results are reported from work on integrated modelling. Details are given concerning point-spread functions (PSFs) obtained with and without adaptive optics (AO). Our results are rather encouraging concerning AO photometry and compensation of edge sensor noise as well as regarding seeing-limited ELT operation. The current status of our development of large deformable mirrors is shown. Low-cost actuators and deflection sensors have been developed as have hierarchic control algorithms. Fabrication of large thin mirror blanks as well as polishing and handling of thin mirrors has been studied experimentally. Regarding adaptive optics, we discuss differential refraction and the limitations imposed by dispersive optical path differences (OPDs) and dispersive anisoplanatism. We report on progress in laser guide star (LGS) performance and a real-time online experiment in multi-conjugate AO (MCAO). We discuss ELTs, high-resolution spectroscopy and pupil slicing with and without use of AO. Finally, we present some recent studies of ELT enclosure options.

A rights-based conceptual framework for the social inclusion of children and young persons with an intellectual disability

Abstract There is a basic principle that all children and young persons with intellectual disabilities should be able to enjoy citizenship on an equal basis with others. This includes enjoying personal dignity and exercising choice, control and freedom in social, community and cultural life, in keeping with their individual lifestyle preferences and aspirations. There is a need for a stronger human rights narrative to achieve this. This article identifies a conceptual framework for a rights-based approach to the integration of children and young persons with disabilities. Seven components of such a framework are identified: citizenship and social inclusion; recognition; agency; voice; capabilities; equality; and self-realisation. This framework was developed as part of an Irish case study involving consultation with young persons with intellectual disabilities, their parents or guardians and professional staff delivering support services. The rights of children/young persons with intellectual disabilities are essentially those of children generally. While this principle may be obvious in many respects, its implementation presents significant challenges. The need for a transformative narrative and its components are outlined.

Parallelization of MATLAB for Euro50 integrated modeling

MATLAB and its companion product Simulink are commonly used tools in systems modelling and other scientific disciplines. A cross-disciplinary integrated MATLAB model is used to study the overall performance of the proposed 50m optical and infrared telescope, Euro50. However the computational requirements of this kind of end-to-end simulation of the telescopes behaviour, exceeds the capability of an individual contemporary Personal Computer. By parallelizing the model, primarily on a functional basis, it can be implemented across a Beowulf cluster of generic PCs. This requires MATLAB to distribute in some way data and calculations to the cluster nodes and combine completed results. There have been a number of attempts to produce toolkits to allow MATLAB to be used in a parallel fashion. They have used a variety of techniques. Here we present findings from using some of these toolkits and proposed advances.

Status of the Integrated Model of the Euro50

The Euro50 is a proposed 50m extremely large telescope for optical and infrared wavelengths. To study and predict the performance of the complete telescope system, an integrated model combining the structural model of the telescope, optics models, the control systems and the adaptive optics has been established. Wind and atmospheric disturbances are also included in the model. The integrated model is written in MATLAB and C. To satisfy memory demands and to achieve acceptable execution times, 64-bit MATLAB is used and part of the model is run on a shared memory machine using OpenMP. We present results from simulations with a complete integrated single conjugate adaptive optics model. Various sensor and actuator geometries are evaluated. A comparison of wind loading and atmospheric turbulence effects is also presented. The model shows that the telescope will be essentially seeing limited under wind load and no AO correction.

Integrated modeling of the Euro50

The Euro50 is a proposed 50 m optical and infrared telescope. It will have thousands of control loops to keep the optics aligned under influence of wind, gravity and thermal loads. Cross-disciplinary integrated modeling is used to study the overall performance of the Euro50. A sub-model of the mechanical structure originates from finite element modeling. The optical performance is determined using ray tracing, both non-linear and linearized. The primary mirror segment alignment control system is modeled with the 618 segments taken as rigid bodies. Adaptive optics is included using a layered model of the atmosphere and sub-models of the wavefront sensor, reconstructor and controller. The deformable mirror is, so far, described by a simple influence function and a second order dynamical transfer function but more detailed work is in progress. The model has been implemented using Matlab/Simulink on individual computers but it will shortly be implemented on a Beowulf cluster within a trusted network. Communication routines between Matlab on the cluster processors have been written and are being benchmarked. Representative results from the simulations are shown.

Architecture of the integrated model of the Euro50

The Euro50 is a proposed 50m extremely large telescope for optical and infrared wavelengths. To study and predict the performance of the complete telescope system, an integrated model combining the structural model of the telescope, optics models, the control systems and the adaptive optics has been established. Wind and atmospheric disturbances are also included in the model. The model is written in MATLAB and C. It is general and modular and built around dedicated ordinary differential equation solvers. The difference in time constants between subsystems is exploited to speed up calculations. The solvers can handle discontinuities and subsystem mode changes. The high degree of modularity allows different telescope designs to be modelled by rearranging subsystem blocks. Certain subsystems, for instance adaptive optics, can also run in a standalone fashion. Parts of the model are parallelized for execution on a large shared memory machine. The resulting architecture of the integrated model and sample results using the code for different telescope models are presented.

Transitioning a message passing interface wavefront sensor model to a graphics processor environment

Previous work produced a parallel and moderately scalable wavefront sensor model as part of a larger integrated telescope model. This relied on traditional high performance computing (HPC) techniques using optimised C and MPI based parallelism to marry maximum performance with the productive high-level modelling environment of MATLAB. In the intervening period the computational power and flexibility offered by graphics processors (GPUs) has increased dramatically. This presents both new options in terms of the level of hardware required to perform simulations and also new capabilities in terms of the scope of such simulations. We present a discussion of the currently available approaches and test case performance results based on a port to a GPU platform.

High time resolution astrophysics and ELTs: Which wavelength?

Observational High Time Resolution Astrophysics differs from conventional astrophysics in regard to the detectors employed which have a time resolution less than that obtainable through CCD with a normal readout τ < a few minutes. This paper looks at the implications for HTRA from extremely large telescopes and specifically, as an exemplar its possible impact on pulsar astrophysics. We demonstrate, by using the derived point-spread-function from models of the Euro50 telescope, the possible effects active and adaptive mirrors have on observing rapidly varying astronomical objects.