HARPS-N (High-Accuracy Radial-Velocity planetary Search) is an instrument designed for the measurement of Radial Velocities (RV) at highest accuracy. It is located in the Northern hemisphere and installed at the TNG on La Palma Island. It has allowed scientists to confirm and characterize Earth-like mass planets: Kepler-78b. In this paper, we present the design of Instrument Control Software (ICS) based on LabVIEW, the key features of implementation such as the XML-RPC, labVIEW Classes and Shared Variables. We also present here the auto-guiding and fibre hole finding algorithm. Use of XML-RPC in Labview for ICS with COTS hardware has made the development of HARAPS-N ICS easily in implementing and integrating with other software in a limited construction time scale.

Date Published: 8 July 2014
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 9147, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V, 91473Q (8 July 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2055848

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9147:
Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V
Suzanne K. Ramsay; Ian S. McLean; Hideki Takami, Editor(s)