A Versatile Scheduler for Automatic Telescopes


LES AUTEURS S. Moisan, M. Boër, C. Thiebaut, F. Tricoire, M. Thonnat.

RESUME:

We present a versatile scheduler for automated telescope observations
and operations. The main objective is to optimize telescope use, while taking
alerts (e.g., Gamma-Ray Bursts), weather conditions, and mechanical failures
into account. Based on our previous experiment, we propose a two steps
approach. First, a daily module develops {\it plan schemes} during the day
that offer several possible scenarii for a night and provide alternatives to
handle problems. Secondly, a nightly module uses a reactive technique --driven
by events from different sensors-- to select at any moment the ``best''
block of observations to launch from the current plan scheme. In addition to
a classical scheduling problem under resource constraints, we also want to
provide dynamic reconfiguration facilities. The proposed approach is
general enough to be applied to any other type of telescope, provided that
reactivity is important.

Mots clé: Robotic observatory, Scheduling, State-transition model, reactive systems

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BibTeX reference:

@InProceedings{SPIE02,
author = {Moisan, S and Boër, M. and Thiebaut, C. and Tricoire, F. and Thonnat, M.},
title = {A Versatile Scheduler for Automatic Telescopes},
booktitle = {SPIE Conference on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation},
year = 2002,
address = {Hawaii, USA},
month = {August}

Dernière mise à jour : 5/08/02
Catherine.Martin@sophia.inria.fr