Ultracam Progress Meeting

18 July 2001

Attendees: Andy Vick, Chris Tierney, Stephen Beard, David Atkinson, Nicola Bate, Tully Peacock, Vicki Ramsay, Vikram Dhillon

Absences: Derek Ives (Hawaii)

Optical

• Tully queried status of manufacturing work. Vik stated that glass has been ordered and is due for delivery by October.

• Tully's proposed visit of 15^th August will now be postponed until 22^nd August. Vik will send documentation the week prior to the meeting to give Tully a head start on checking this. Vik and Mark will then come to ATC and hold meeting with Tully and a Mechanical Engineer. Andy will be booking a M.Eng's time for this.

• Vik stated that flexure analysis has been done by Mark on overall structure but not on each components. Tully replied that this would be sufficient. Will be spending time discussing mounting on optics on Vik's visit.

Software

• Stephen has been working on C code in SDSU that needed to be done. He has also finished off Nick Dillon's software and has translated 'on disk' Motorola files so that they can now downloaded to DSP.

• Stephen will be shortly be finishing with high priority VISTA work so can spend more time on Ultracam.

• Chris will be leaving for Hawaii in two weeks and will be unable to spend anymore than minimal time on Ultracam prior to leaving. His main workload on Ultracam is the real time driver software and as he has already completed the 'knowledge acquisition' aspect of this work, which is most of the task. This is the first time a PCI interface has been used in this respect and currently only Chris can do this area. As so much of the workload is learning it would not be prudent for someone else to take on this workload.

• David has been pushing ahead with DSP code, but Chris needs to put in software so David can work further on this. Unfortunately, this basically means that high level software work will have to stop until mid August when Chris returns from commissioning.

• As the work Chris has been doing off the Ultracam project has not been accounted for in the Project Plan, Andy will be speaking to the Programme Management team to request solid blocks of Chris's time on his return.

• Vik agreed that it was best for Chris's work to go on hold until he returns

Electronics/Mechanical

• Nicola has been working on testing heat loads for camera and this is progressing well. Hold time achieved is now 'weeks' and last hold was almost 1 month before work in this area moved on. Vacuum getter seems to have resolved earlier problems in this area.

• Nicola has also been working on Peltier performance to see if we can get down to required temperature.

• A remanufacture of the PCB in the Peltier may be required and this may, in turn, necessitate a re-design. However, as the hold time is currently acceptable, the extent of this work requirement is still to be confirmed.

• David has mainly been working on DSP code - boot code of SDSU and documentation. Has simulated and tested some, but is limited when there is no system to 'talk to'.

• He has moved onto PCI boards/psp code and has coded and finished of design. These are now sitting in PCI card awaiting testing, but David is unable to test further at present until data is flowing.

• Although there is work for David to do when Chris is unavailable (eg re-design of head, solve noise problem), it may not be economically viable for his to work full time on the project until Chris's input is available again. Andy and David will meet separately to discuss workload (possibly carry out some DSP work on WFCAM which would have educational profitability to Ultracam work).

AOB

• Delivery date is now expected to be late November 2001, but Andy will have to re-formulate the Project Plan.

• Andy will be agreeing available time with Programme Management over August period.

• Chris believes it would be beneficial to get together with Tom Marsh. Tom is currently observing but Vik will contact him to see if a meeting or at least a transfer of documents is needed.

• VAT question - Vik now has relevant details from ATC will be sorting out the matter with PPARC.

• Although initial aims are for acceptance testing in November 2001, Vik stated Ultracam can't actually be commissioned until February so current time delays should not cause any major problems.

ACTIONS