Paper 13094-104
Optimizing slew control in the SOAR telescope mount upgrade project: a jerk-constrained and minimum-time trajectory generator approach
Abstract
Achieving smooth and efficient slew movements on telescope mounts is crucial for minimizing structural stress, reaching maximum velocities, and ensuring efficient operation. Traditional slew trajectory generation methods often fall short in optimizing trajectories for time, resulting in unnecessarily long slew times that reduce telescope efficiency and potentially affect observation opportunities. Additionally, traditional methods often fail to converge smoothly to tracking velocities, leading to abrupt changes in motion that can compromise settling time. This paper presents a novel time-optimal jerk-limited trajectory generator algorithm for slew movements and its current implementation at the SOAR telescope as part of the Mount Control Upgrade Project. This algorithm effectively addresses these limitations by simultaneously optimizing for user-defined constraints on position, velocity, acceleration, and jerk while achieving minimum time. The algorithm produces a jerk-constrained trajectory that converges to a constant velocity reference specified by position, velocity, and time (PVT) commands, ensuring smooth and efficient convergence to tracking velocities while minimizing structural stress and settling time. The proposed algorithm is simple to implement and can be used to generate smooth slew trajectories in telescopes and actuators in general.
Presenter
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (Chile)
Braulio Cancino is an electronic engineer with a master's degree from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He has extensive experience in telescope automation and telescope detector electronics. His research interests include developing novel control algorithms for telescope mounts, optimizing telescope performance, and designing and implementing innovative telescope detector electronics. He is currently completing the SOAR Mount Upgrade Project, a significant undertaking that will enhance the efficiency and performance of the SOAR Telescope. He is also actively involved in the testing of Skipper CCD detectors on the sky for the first time, which will be implemented on the SOAR Telescope SIFS instrument.