The AMiBA Hexapod Telescope Mount
Abstract
AMiBA is the largest hexapod astronomical telescope in current operation. We present a description of this novel hexapod mount with its main mechanical components -- the support cone, universal joints, jack screws, and platform -- and outline the control system with the pointing model and the operating modes that are supported. The AMiBA hexapod mount performance is verified based on optical pointing tests and platform photogrammetry measurements. The photogrammetry results show that the deformations in the inner part of the platform are less than 120 micron rms. This is negligible for optical pointing corrections, radio alignment and radio phase errors for the currently operational 7-element compact configuration. The optical pointing error in azimuth and elevation is successively reduced by a series of corrections to about 0.4 arcmin rms which meets our goal for the 7-element target specifications.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0902.2335,
title = {The AMiBA Hexapod Telescope Mount},
author = {Patrick M. Koch and Michael Kesteven and Hiroaki Nishioka and Homin Jiang and Kai-Yang Lin and Keiichi Umetsu and Yau-De Huang and Philippe Raffin and Ke-Jung Chen and Fabiola Ibanez-Romano and Guillaume Chereau and Chih-Wei Locutus Huang and Ming-Tang Chen and Paul T. P. Ho and Konrad Pausch and Klaus Willmeroth and Pablo Altamirano and Chia-Hao Chang and Shu-Hao Chang and Su-Wei Chang and Chih-Chiang Han and Derek Kubo and Chao-Te Li and Yu-Wei Liao and Guo-Chin Liu and Pierre Martin-Cocher and Peter Oshiro and Fu-Cheng Wang and Ta-Shun Wei and Jiun-Huei Proty Wu and Mark Birkinshaw and Tzihong Chiueh and Katy Lancaster and Kwok Yung Lo and Robert N. Martin and Sandor M. Molnar and Ferdinand Patt and Bob Romeo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0902.2335},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
Accepted for ApJ, 33 pages, 15 figures