Study On The Key Technology Of Remote Autonomous Observation For Astronomical Equipment

Time domain astronomy,exoplanet search and space debris monitoring are the hot research areas in astronomy and related application.Therefore,we need astronomical observation equipment with higher resolution,more sensitive detection ability and more continuous monitoring of targets.These require the development of hardware and software cooperation of autonomous observation and control.In order to obtain better visibility and longer observation time,more and more astronomical observation equipment choose to construct in plateau,polar,space and other environments,which are not suitable to live.Therefore,the equipment must support the ability of autonomous observation and can be remotely controlled.At the same time,the number of astronomical observation equipment is increasing,and there is a trend to form a network for collaborative observation.In order to reduce the cost of personnel maintenance,centralized and unified management,and improve the observation efficiency,we need to strengthen the development of remote independent observation and build a higher-level network platform.On the other hand,the telescope aperture is larger and larger,and the equipment modules are more and more complex.In order to reduce the complexity and to fit different scenarios,and strengthen the construction of data acquisition and fault analysis platform,we need to build control software with multi interface level.Compared with the successful implementation of intelligent autonomous observation and remote control networking in the international projects such as BOOTES and LCOGT,the research of remote autonomous observation technology started late in China,and there is a certain gap with the international.Around RTS2 technology,some progress has been made in the Antarctic Bright Star Survey Telescope,automatic dome control with weather stations,Two Channels Astronomy Camera for 1.2m Quantum Teleportation Telescope,LAMOST and Lijiang 2.4m telescopes.At the same time,several teams are carry out remote autonomous observation technology around their own equipment,including astronomical observation of Antarctica,space debris observation platform,and autonomous control of large telescope observation equipment,etc.However,there is still a need for further breakthroughs in completely unattended automatic observation and telescope network observation.This paper focuses on the further construction of the Antarctic Observatory,the establishment of the space debris monitoring network,and the WFST mosaic camera control subsystem.First of all,for more and more small telescopes and different equipment,we need to improve the reusability of software implementation and model the business from the top-down perspective;For Antarctic astronomy,we need to increase the stability of remote control and improve the control efficiency under the satellite network with high delay and low bandwidth;For the flexible observation requirements of space debris monitoring,it is necessary to improve the framework of remote autonomous observation and control,adopt more advanced framework development,improve the independent observation process,and lay a good foundation for the network of stations.For the platform of the first large-scale mosaic camera in China,we need to put forward a complete control platform scheme for its various use scenarios.This paper first clarifies the importance of autonomous observations and remote control,then introduces the development status of autonomous observation and remote control technologies at home and abroad.This paper then further introduces three scenarios that require the development of autonomous observation technologies:Antarctic astronomy,space debris monitoring,and large-field survey telescope cameras.This paper defines the overall architecture of autonomous observation and remote control:hardware device layer,equipment control layer,observation control layer,and user service layer.In order to reduce the development complexity,this paper has made a general definition and design of the equipment module layer.This paper does state machine analysis and failure scenario analysis on typical equipment modules.To model the autonomous observation business,this paper discusses the general observation process,and proposes implementation schemes for automatic focusing,flat field,and guiding star.For Antarctic astronomy,this paper implements a remote autonomous observation control framework in the Antarctic bright star Survey Telescope and other projects,analyzes the technology of RTS2 and introduces the interface extension method of RTS2.On this basis,a method for remote control of the Antarctic telescope in a low-bandwidth and high-delay scenario is proposed.This method can be used as a prototype for the operation and control of the Antarctic Observatory.For debris observation,this paper analyzes its business and required functions,clarifies its network architecture,and proposes a telescope autonomous observation control framework based on ZeroMQ and Protobuf to realize the business functions of debris observation.Taking the Xinglong Debris Observation Telescope as an example,this paper proposes a cloud cover analysis plan to improve the weather judgment of autonomous observation.For the stellar observation mode,the debris data processing method is introduced.For the WFST camera control system,this paper designs its remote control framework.Based on the design idea of microservices,the equipment function modules and business modules are divided,and the key modules such as camera,configuration,and data storage are preliminary designed.Aiming at the characteristics of the stitching camera,a file storage method based on MEF(multi-extension FITS)is designed,taking into account the compatibility of existing astronomy software.The innovations of this article are as follows:1)The characteristics of various equipment modules of the telescope involved in Antarctic astronomy and debris observation are refined,and the definition and analysis of basic attributes,state machines,and failure cases are given.The business process of autonomous observation is also classified and the implementation method is introduced.Based on the in-depth study of the RTS2 framework,this paper proposes to extend its message interface based on REDIS,and further integrates RTS2 and Tornado WEB service framework.For the Antarctic low-bandwidth and high-latency network,the WEB service structure is further expanded,and the remote control service capability is enhanced.It can be regarded as the prototype of the Antarctic astronomical equipment networking operation control.2)For the debris observation business,an observation control framework based on ZeroMQ and Protobuf is proposed and applied.The framework is highly extensible and can be used flexibly with Python scripts to well meet the functional requirements of debris observation.3)For the first domestically developed large telescope splicing camera,its remote control platform was defined and designed.The functional requirements and key constraints of different scenarios are analyzed.The camera control is designed with multiple levels and interfaces,and the functional modules are split based on the idea of microservices to facilitate independent development and debugging of modules.