Related papers: AAO Starbugs: software control and associated algo…
The TAIPAN instrument, currently being developed for the Australian Astronomical Observatory's UK Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, makes use of the AAO's Starbug technology to deploy 150 science fibres to target positions on…
Starbugs are miniature piezoelectric walking robots that can be operated in parallel to position many payloads like optical fibers across a telescopes focal plane. They consist of two concentric piezoelectric ceramic tubes that walk with…
Starbugs are miniaturised robotic devices that position optical fibres over a telescope's focal plane in parallel operation for high multiplex spectroscopic surveys. The key advantage of the Starbug positioning system is its potential to…
The Australian Astronomical Observatory has extensively prototyped a new robotic positioner to allow simultaneous positioning of optical fibers at the focal plane called 'Starbugs'. The Starbug devices each consist of two concentric…
Starbugs are miniature piezoelectric 'walking' robots with the ability to simultaneously position many optical fibres across a telescope's focal plane. Their simple design incorporates two piezoceramic tubes to form a pair of concentric…
Taipan is a multi-object spectroscopic galaxy survey starting in 2017 that will cover 2pi steradians over the southern sky, and obtain optical spectra for about two million galaxies out to z<0.4. Taipan will use the newly-refurbished 1.2m…
This paper introduces the emerging field of astrobotics, that is, a recently-established branch of robotics to be of service to astrophysics and observational astronomy. We first describe a modern requirement of dark matter studies, i.e.,…
Robo-AO is the first astronomical laser guide star adaptive optics (AO) system designed to operate completely independent of human supervision. A single computer commands the AO system, the laser guide star, visible and near-infrared…
Robo-AO is the first autonomous laser adaptive optics system and science instrument operating on sky. With minimal human oversight, the system robotically executes large scale surveys, monitors long-term astrophysical dynamics and…
Large area surveys will dominate the forthcoming decades of astronomy and their success requires characterizing thousands of discoveries through additional observations at higher spatial or spectral resolution, and at complementary cadences…
Astrobots are robotic artifacts whose swarms are used in astrophysical studies to generate the map of the observable universe. These swarms have to be coordinated with respect to various desired observations. Such coordination are so…
The ability to position multiple miniaturized wavefront sensors precisely over large focal surfaces are advantageous to multi-object adaptive optics. The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) has prototyped a compact and lightweight…
Astrobot swarms are used to capture astronomical signals to generate the map of the observable universe for the purpose of dark energy studies. The convergence of each swarm in the course of its coordination has to surpass a particular…
As new large-scale astronomical surveys greatly increase the number of objects targeted and discoveries made, the requirement for efficient follow-up observations is crucial. Adaptive optics imaging, which compensates for the image-blurring…
Astronomical adaptive optics systems are used to increase effective telescope resolution. However, they cannot be used to observe the whole sky since one or more natural guide stars of sufficient brightness must be found within the…
Observational astronomy has changed drastically in the last decade: manually driven target-by-target instruments have been replaced by fully automated robotic telescopes. Data acquisition methods have advanced to the point that terabytes of…
This paper presents a new algorithm for autonomous multitarget tracking of resident space objects using optical angles-only measurements from a spaceborne observer. To enable autonomous angles-only navigation of spacecraft swarms, an…
We introduce a 0.7m telescope system at the Miryang Arirang Astronomical Observatory (MAAO), a public observatory in Miryang, Korea. System integration and a scheduling program enable the 0.7m telescope system to operate completely…
OARPAF (Osservatorio Astronomico Regionale Parco Antola Comune di Fascia, Italy) hosts an 80cm Astelco telescope with a Gambato Dome, SBIG-STX camera, Davis weather station, and SBIG AllSky camera. We present a layer-structured python3…
The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) operates four fully automatic telescopes to search for occultations of stars by Kuiper Belt Objects. It is a versatile facility that is also useful for the study of initial optical GRB…