Related papers: 'MOHAWK' : a 4000-fiber positioner for DESpec

The Australian Astronomical Observatory's 'tilting spine' fibre positioning technology has been redeveloped to provide superior performance in a smaller package. The new design offers demonstrated closed-loop positioning errors of 2.8…

In this paper we present the Australian Astronomical Observatory's concept design for Sphinx - a fiber positioned with 4332 spines on a 7.77mm pitch for CFHT's Mauna Kea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) Telescope. Based on the Echidna…

We present a conceptual design for a fiber positioning system for multi-object high-resolution spectroscopy, designed to be compatible with the upcoming large telescopes with a wide field of view. The design incorporates multiple…

This paper discusses a new approach for determining the calibration parameters of independently-actuated optical fibers in multi-object astronomical fiber positioning systems. This work comes from the development of a new type of…

Small-pitch populated focal planes are essential enabling technologies for the next generation of highly multiplexed astronomical instruments. As modern astrophysics relies on massive spectroscopic surveys to study dark energy, dark matter,…

We present Simulated Annealing fiber-to-target allocation simulations for the proposed DESI and 4MOST massively multiplexed spectroscopic surveys, and for both Poisson and realistically clustered mock target samples. We simulate both…

Highly multiplexed, fiber-fed spectroscopy is enabling surveys of millions of stars and galaxies. The performance of these surveys depends on accurately positioning fibers in the focal plane to capture target light. We describe a technique…

We present the design, fabrication, and testing of R-FLEX, a novel flexure mechanism for next-generation fiber-fed astronomical instruments. As the current Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) revolutionizes cosmology with over 56…

A system of 5,020 robotic fiber positioners was installed in 2019 on the Mayall Telescope, at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The robots automatically re-target their optical fibers every 10 - 20 minutes, each to a precision of several…

Highly-multiplexed, robotic, fiber-fed spectroscopic surveys are observing tens of millions of stars and galaxies. For many systems, accurate positioning relies on imaging the fibers in the focal plane and feeding that information back to…

Multiplexed surveys have the ambition to grow larger for the next generation of focal plane instruments. Future projects such as Spec-S5, MUST, and WST have an ever-growing need for multi-object spectroscopy (13,000 - 20,000 simultaneous…

The use of flexures to achieve fibre positioner motion is being actively investigated by several institutes, for example at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC) and Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam. One challenge when…

The next generation of large-scale spectroscopic survey experiments such as DESI, will use thousands of fiber positioner robots packed on a focal plate. In order to maximize the observing time with this robotic system we need to move in…

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is under construction to measure the expansion history of the Universe using the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation technique. The spectra of 35 million galaxies and quasars over 14000 sq deg will be…

Massively parallel multi-object spectrographs are on the leading edge of cosmology instrumentation. The highly successful Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) which begun survey operations in May 2021, for example, has 5,000…

We introduce a passively-aligned, flexure-tuned cavity optomechanical system in which a membrane is positioned microns from one end mirror of a Fabry-Perot optical cavity. By displacing the membrane through gentle flexure of its silicon…

Massive spectroscopic survey are becoming trendy in astrophysics and cosmology, as they can address new fundamental knowledge such as Galactic Archaeology and probe the nature of the mysterious Dark Energy. To enable massive spectroscopic…

WEAVE is the new wide-field spectroscopy facility for the prime focus of the William Herschel Telescope in La Palma, Spain. Its fibre positioner is essential for the accurate placement of the spectrograph's 960 fibre multiplex. We provide…

Some of the next generation massive spectroscopic survey projects, such as DESI and PFS, plan to use thousands of fiber positioner robots packed at a focal plane to quickly move in parallel the fiber-ends from the previous to the next…

Dielectric metasurfaces are two-dimensional structures composed of nano-scatterers that manipulate phase and polarization of optical waves with subwavelength spatial resolution, enabling ultra-thin components for free-space optics. While…