UK Astronomy Technology Centre Chris Tierney
Royal Observatory, Edinburgh 31st March 2001

device.dl for the pickoff x-stage device

Safety

All the NAOMI mechanism control screens display two buttons - a red "Emergency" button and a green "Safe" button - in the top right corner of the screen.

Left clicking an "Emergency" button will immediately stop any motion by any part of the wavefront sensor or calibration unit. Thereafter, any demands for motion are rejected, until the user left clicks on any of the "Safe" buttons. Many mechanisms will then demand to be re-indexed before allowing the execution of any other motions.

Note: This safety feature has no effect on the motion of the Durham deformable mirror (DM) or fast beam-steering mirror (FSM), nor any component of the electronics associated with NAOMI.

For more information, see the NAOMI mechanism software safety page.

Mode and Directive menu buttons

Input parameters

The screen provides input fields for the required final position and motion velocity (called "target position" and "target velocity"), in engineering units. Position is specified relative to the datum position, whilst the velocity given is the maximum velocity attained (between the acceleration and deceleration phases) during the motion.

An input field is provided also for a "named" position, labelled with the character "S". A set of recognised named positions (usually used during indexing) are contained in the lookup table for each device (in this case, pox_device.lut). Each named position specifies an indexing algorithm, for use when the record is in "index" mode. If the string contained in the named position field is recognised, this is used in preference to the (numeric) position given in the input field above.

Current status information display

The screen provides displays for the current position (as derived from the motor step count or encoder reading) and current operating mode.

The "Action state" display shows IDLE when the record is currently inactive. When given an directive, this display will show BUSY, before returning to IDLE when the operation is complete. If any operation fails, the record will display ERR, and print a diagnostic message in the "Error Message" output.

Index mode

A set of default indexing (datuming) procedures (called "algorithms") are provided in the deviceControl record. A user can select one of eight algorithms, using the "Index" input field on this screen (an integer between 0 and 7 is accepted):
  1. No index - this index algorithm moves the motor to the demanded position, without attempting to index (datum) the mechanism. If the current mode is "index", the indexed flag (record field HPVL) is set. If the current mode is "move", "track" or "park", all moves are performed in this fashion (assuming the HPVL flag has been set).
  2. Lower home switch - this algorithm, when the current mode is "index", instructs the OMS card to move the motor backwards, until the home switch is seen high. The motor is then moved further until the home switch is low. The motion velocity is reduced (to the hard-coded "index" velocity) and the motor then moves forward until the switch is seen high, and then low again. The motor is finally returned to the location at which the home switch last underwent a transition (high to low at the upper limit of the switch).
  3. Upper home switch - this algorithm is as the lower home switch algorithm above, only the motor travels forwards to (and past) the home switch, before travelling backwards to the high to low transition at low velocity.
  4. Center home switch - using this algorithm, the motor travels backwards to the lower limit switch (see below), before executing an index to an upper home switch (as above). This mode is not well tested (and, in fact, has bene removed from the Gemini copy of the deviceControl record), so it is not recommended for normal use.
  5. Lower limit switch - this algorithm moves the motor a large distance in the backwards (ngeative) direction. Eventually the stage should reach its lower limit switch, at which point the OMS card stops pulse generation to the motor drive card, stopping the motor. The deviceControl record zeros the OMS position registers at this (datum) point.
  6. Upper limit switch - as above, but to the upper limit switch.
  7. Re-index to a limit switch - this mode is for more accurate datuming to a limit switch. If the stage is currently in its lower limit, it is moved off the switch (forwards) and back onto it, at a low velocity. Otherwise, it is moved backwards off the limit and back onto it, at low velocity.
  8. Rotaty stage home switch - this algorithm is for datuming the NAOMI rotary stages, which have no limit switches and one home switch, which is only active for a small angle. The motor is moved backwards until the home switch is seen high and then low. The motor then searches for the low-high-low home switch transition in the forward direction, at low velocity, before returning to the location at which the last transition occured (at normal velocity).
The screen can be used to select different index algorithms for engineering purposes. In normal operation, however, the attached assemblyControl record sends named "index" positions to the device (the named positions are specified in the lookup table for this device, pox_device.lut). Algorithms are specified for each named position. For full details see the documentation for the pickoff assembly.

Menu items

There is one sub-menu provided from this screen. The deviceControl status screen displays detailed information about the current state of the deviceControl record and it's associated mechanism. safety control buttons input output indexing algorithm menu items