Status of the Local Monitor and Control System of SKA Dishes

Abstract

The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project aims at building the world's largest radio observatory to observe the radio sky with unprecedented sensitivity and collecting area. In the SKA1 phase of the project, two dish arrays are to be built, one in South Africa (SKA1-Mid) and the other in Western Australia (SKA1-Survey). Each antenna will be provided with a local monitor and control system, enabling remote operations to engineers and to the Telescope Manager system. In this paper we present the current status of the software system being designed to monitor and control the dish subsystem. An overview of the dish instrumentation is reported, along with details concerning the software architecture, functional interfaces, prototyping and the evaluated technologies.