Kermit Electronics & Software

Kermit operates the Rockwell Hawaii 2 array in 32-channel readout mode. To handle the barrage of data coming from this massive array, we utilize an array of 8 four-channel infrared coadder boards, built by Bob Leach at Astronomical Research Cameras of San Diego. Each quadrant of the array is handled by two adjacent coadder cards. The Leach electronics are connected with the control computer (a Sun UltraSparc 10 named "sauron") via a 50 Mbps fiber optic line.

The Motorola 56001 DSP code running on the Leach readout boards was modified and upgraded to handle the Hawaii 2 array by Mike Trumpis, with contributions by Marshall Perrin and Jamie Lloyd.

The control software was written by Marshall Perrin, and is based directly upon the control software for IRCAL at Lick Observatory, by Jamie Lloyd and Scott Severson. It uses the Music message passing library originally developed by UCO/Lick and Keck Observatories. The main components are "leachd", a C daemon which interfaces with the Leach electronics box, and "kermitui", which is a Tcl/Tk GUI and high-level control program. Quick-look data analysis is performed in IDL and DS9.

The software source code may be found here, while the user manual is here.

See also the SDSU Controller User's Group page.

This page last updated June 26, 2003, by Marshall Perrin