The ALMA Common Software (ACS) is a set of application frameworks built on top of CORBA. It provides a common software infrastructure to all partners in the ALMA collaboration. The usage of ACS extends from high-level applications such as the Observation Preparation Tool [7] that will run on the desk of astronomers, down to the Control Software [6] domain. The purpose of ACS is twofold: from a system perspective, it provides the implementation of a coherent set of design patterns and services that will make the whole ALMA software [1] uniform and maintainable; from the perspective of an ALMA developer, it provides a friendly programming environment in which the complexity of the CORBA middleware and other libraries is hidden and coding is drastically reduced. The evolution of ACS is driven by a long term development plan, however on the 6-months release cycle the plan is adjusted based on incoming requests from ALMA subsystem development teams. ACS was presented at SPIE 2002[2]. In the two years since then, the core services provided by ACS have been extended, while the coverage of the application framework has been increased to satisfy the needs of high-level and data flow applications. ACS is available under the LGPL public license. The patterns implemented and the services provided can be of use also outside the astronomical community; several projects have already shown their interest in ACS. This paper presents the status of ACS and the progress over the last two years. Emphasis is placed on showing how requests from ACS users have driven the selection of new features.

/pdf/the-alma-common-software-a-developer-friendly-corba-based-37av98lkrm.pdf

The ALMA common software: a developer-friendly CORBA-based framework

The control subsystem for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) must fulfill a number of roles. Principle
amongst these is the ability to conduct observations and the ability to monitor and maintain the health of the hardware.
These two roles impose different requirements on the control subsystem. The ALMA control subsystem uses a design
which explicitly recognizes these different roles and provides capabilities that are targeted at the astronomers, engineers
and other users of the ALMA control subsystem. In this paper we will describe this aspect of the design of the ALMA
control subsystem with emphasis on how the various components of the software interact to meet the requirements of
these different users and produce a coherent control subsystem that can transition from a high level, astronomical
perspective of the array to a detailed low-level perspective with a focus on a particular piece of hardware.

A dual-consumer design for the Atacama large millimeter array control subsystem

The software for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) that has been developed in a collaboration of ESO, NRAO, NAOJ and the Joint ALMA Observatory for well over a decade is an integrated end-to-end software system of about six million lines of source code. As we enter the third cycle of science observations, we reflect on some of the decisions taken and call out ten topics where we could have taken a different approach at the time, or would take a different approach in today’s environment. We believe that these lessons learned should be helpful as the next generation of large telescope projects move into their construction phases.

/pdf/ten-things-we-would-do-differently-today-reflections-on-a-1qhz38fkym.pdf

Ten things we would do differently today: reflections on a decade of ALMA software development

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) will, when it is completed
in 2012, be the world's largest millimeter & sub-millimeter radio
telescope. It will consist of 64 antennas, each one 12 meters in
diameter, connected as an interferometer.


The ALMA Test Interferometer Control System (TICS) was developed as a
prototype for the ALMA control system. Its initial task was to provide
sufficient functionality for the evaluation of the prototype
antennas. The main antenna evaluation tasks include surface
measurements via holography and pointing accuracy, measured at both
optical and millimeter wavelengths.

In this paper we will present the design of TICS, which is a
distributed computing environment. In the test facility there are four
computers: three real-time computers running VxWorks (one on each
antenna and a central one) and a master computer running Linux. These
computers communicate via Ethernet, and each of the real-time
computers is connected to the hardware devices via an extension of the
CAN bus.

We will also discuss our experience with this system and outline
changes we are making in light of our experiences.

ALMA test interferometer control system: past experiences and future developments

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ALMA test interferometer control system: past experiences and future developments