Today's focus: The world's biggest robotic telescope

January 7, 1610 — Galileo Galilei peers through a small, homemade telescope and spies three moons orbiting the planet Jupiter. The discovery throws a wrench into the prevailing belief that everything in the universe orbits the Earth.

May 28, 2008 — Astronomers in Yunnan Province, China, peer through a 40-ton, $4.5 million robotic telescope that has the power to view galaxies more than 5 billion light years away. Their discoveries, no doubt, will throw a wrench into prevailing theories of how the universe works.

Some things, thankfully, never change.

Situated 3,240 meters above sea level, the QNX-controlled Yunnan telescope is the largest optical telescope in China. Designed for multiple applications, it helps astronomers search for planets, analyze supernovae, study the age of the universe, and investigate a variety of other stellar phenomena — this is one system where the sky really is the limit.

Telescope Technologies Limited (TTL), a firm based in Birkenhead, England, designed and built the Yunnan telescope. The firm's design requirements were nothing if not ambitious. The telescope had to:

• support a variety of scientific instruments — up to 7 at a time


• simplify maintenance through a modular design and through off-the-shelf software and hardware components


• support multiple modes of operation, including remote control over the Web and fully autonomous robotic operation


• satisfy the needs of a variety of observatories, astronomical programs, and user communities


• simplify operation to minimize the number of human operators

To control the telescope’s many functions, TTL built a distributed system that comprises 7 embedded PCs running the QNX Neutrino RTOS. A separate PC controls each motion axis (azimuth, altitude, rotator) of the telescope; the remaining PCs handle mirror-cell pneumatics, data logging, security, and other auxiliary functions.

Ease of use was critical to the system design, which provides a number of graphical displays for monitoring and control. Take, for example, the autoguider GUI (AGI), seen below. Based on the QNX Photon microGUI, the AGI allows the operator to manually control the autoguider camera for calibration, acquisition, and other purposes.


The autoguider GUI

For a closer look at this telescope’s many capabilities, check out check out TTL’s product specification.

Rx for oil-rig blowouts

Got 15 seconds? Then check out this video of a oil-rig blowout — the action starts at exactly 00:15:



Fortunately, no one got hurt in the incident. And just as fortunately, real-time control devices called blowout preventers (BOPs) are making blowouts a thing of the past. This week, Control Engineering magazine profiled a BOP based on the QNX Neutrino RTOS and the McObject high availability database. It’s a pretty cool system, but more important, it keeps oil rigs from bursting into incendiary versions of Old Faithful.

Oil rigs are surrounded by saltwater. Lots of it. Salt plays havoc with electronics, so this is one system where redundant, standby controllers come in handy. To achieve this redundancy, the BOP relies on QNX Neutrino transparent distributed processing (TDP), which can merge any number of real-time control systems into a seamless, peer-to-peer network. Together with the McObject database, QNX TDP ensures that the primary and standby controllers share the same, up-to-date view of the system.

This application is a shoe-in for my list of all-time life-saving QNX-based systems.

10 QNX systems that could save your life

Well, to be honest, 9 systems. Because I'd like you to fill in the 10th.

A few years ago, a colleague of mine was manning a tradeshow booth that showcased a QNX-based blood collection system. A guy walked up to her and said, “If it weren’t for that device, my son would be dead today.”

It’s pretty emotional when someone tells you something like that. But the fact is, QNX-based systems have been helping to save lives ever since QNX shipped its first OS in the early 1980s. So without further ado, here are my 9 all-time life-saving QNX-based systems — add your own to make it a perfect 10:

1. Crisys emergency dispatch system — Its phone number might be 911, but its uptime is closer to 99.9999%. When you turn this system on, it stays on. More
   


2. DuPont RiboPrinter microbial characterization system — There are “good” bacteria and “bad” bacteria. This system helps ensure that the bad ones don’t end up in important things. Like your dinner. More
   


3. Senstar-Stellar intrusion detection systems — From airports to nuclear plants to military bases, Senstar-Stellar's security systems help keep the bad guys out. Except for prisons, where it keeps them in. More
   


4. Siemens AXIOM Artis angiography system — According to the brochure, this system provides “unprecedented cardiac imaging performance and an expansive range of diagnostic and interventional applications — from cardiac angiography to ECG-triggered fluoroscopy.” But from the patient’s perspective, here’s the standout feature: A comfy, form-fitting mattress. More
   


5. Burdick Quest electrocardiograph (ECG) stress testing system — This device won’t do you any good if you’re in the middle of a major heart attack. But it can predict whether you’re a candidate for one. More
   


6. Bio-Rad BioPlex 2200 diagnostic platform — This “fully automated multiplexing immunoassay platform” can, among other things, diagnose vasculitis, a disease in which your immune system attacks your own blood vessels. The faster you detect vasculitis, the better the patient's chances, so it’s a good thing that the BioPlex can whip out 2200 test results per hour. More
   


7. [Censored] air traffic control systems — Without reliable ATC systems, planes would be banging into one another like there’s no tomorrow. I’m not at liberty to tell you which airports use QNX-based ATC systems, but there are lots of them, worldwide. More
   


8. AECL monitoring & control systems for nuclear reactors — Atomic Energy of Canada isn’t the only organization that uses QNX for nuclear plants, but they’ve probably been doing it longer than anyone else — since the 1980s, as far as I can tell. More
   


9. Neptec laser camera system (LCS) for the Space Shuttle — Okay, so this one won’t save your life unless you’re an astronaut. But if you are an astronaut, the data this system provides can help you avoid becoming, well, part of the void. More
   


10. Fill in the blank — Leave a comment and share your candidate for the all-time life-saving QNX device!