Research On ASCOM Based Development Technology Of Telescope

Because most suitable locations for astronomical observation are distributed in the cold and high altitude area, plateau or mountains. The moisture content there is low and the atmospheric seeing is high. But limited by the geographical environment, it is very difficult for observation personnel to stay for a long time. We can solve the problem by remoting control on the astronomical telescope. As the same time, it can improve the observation quality effectively. This has an important significance for the astronomical observation.This involved special theodolite system is designed in order to meet the requirements of quantum science satellite application, complete the key distribution test. The software system has many special modules rely on special hardware equipments. The coupling between modules is very high. In order to make it have the function of remote control and cooperate with other equipments to finish astronomical observations, we re-design the control system based on ASCOM technology. By using of Microsoft COM component technology to ensure the scalability of the system. The design conforms to the ASCOM standards make sure that the system has good compatibility.By analysis the history of the development of telescope control, we find the networking, distributed and publicity is the future of telescope control. Based on the comparison of Linux RTS2 and Windows based ASCOM, we choice ASCOM as a technical proposal.The main goal of ASCOM is to provide a driver-client layer to separate astronomy device-specifics from the application software that uses those devices. The software use Microsoft COM component programming model. Its API consists of a set of standard properties and methods, as defined in the relevant ASCOM interface specification, permit compatibility with all Windows languages. Applications control the operation of the equipment via ASCOM to invoke device driver. Using ASCOM common protocols will greatly improve the scalability and compatibility for system.By analyzing the hardware and software architecture of system and the bottlenecks. Combined with the requirements of ASCOM, by using of Microsoft COM technology, we give a new software architecture. We giving a detailed description of the ASCOM intermediate driver as the internal software architecture, interface definition, the class definition and the communication protocol between the ASCOM driver and the hardware driver of original system. Finally, through the implementation of a function for example, demonstrate the working process of ASCOM module.