Introduction to OSI and DFPS
Presentation at the Astronomical Instrumentation Laboratory, TAMU
16-FEB-23
Kevan Hashemi
Open Source Instruments Inc.
www.opensourceinstruments.com
The Company
Founded in 2004 by employees of Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.
All designs, software, and firmware are open-source under GPL3.
Founded in order to provide metrology instruments for CERN.
Diversified into laboratory animal wireless telemetry.
Four full-time employees, two part-time employees.
Of our $1M revenue last year, 70% was telemetry sales.
Another 20% was Phase I SBIR grant from NSF for fiber positioiner.
Another 10% was Phase I SBIR grant from DoE for new metrology instrumentation.
Relationship with Brandeis University has ended.
Collaborate with Tufts University on the ATLAS end-cap alignment system at CERN.
Example Instrument: The BCAM
Figure:
A Black H-BCAM.
The Boston CCD Angle Monitor (BCAM)
Sits on three-ball kinematic mount.
Provides one or two cameras.
Provides two or four light sources.
Cameras measure bearing of light sources.
Model as a pin-hole camera and point sources.
Seven calibration constants define each camera.
Calibrate cameras and sources in a roll cage.
Installed thousands of these in the ATLAS detector.
Installed hundreds more in other detectors.
BCAM User Manual is
here
.
Data Acquisition Hardware: The LWDAQ
Long-Wire Data Acquisition (LWDAQ) system controls and reads out our instruments.
Communication with LWDAQ takes place over TCPIP.
LWDAQ Software runs on Ubuntu, MacOS, Windows, and Raspberry Pi.
User manual is
here
.
Works well for small systems in the laboratory and large systems in detectors.
Our Direct Fiber Positioning System test stands are LWDAQ.
The ATLAS End-Cap Alignment System is a LWDAQ with thousands of devices.
Direct Fiber Positioning
Figure:
A Direct Fiber Positioner.
No moving parts other than bending actuator.
Positioners can be packed on a 5-mm grid.
Can cover 3.8-mm square with fiber tip.
Must pack control electronics in 5-mm square.
Permits construction of Stage 5 Spectrograph.
NSF Support
Received $240k SBIR Phase I grant from NSF in January 2022.
Award period ends 30-MAR-23.
Have achieved all important milestons.
Controllers fit in available space.
Creep and hysteresis mitigation strategies successful.
Ready to apply for Phase II $1M grant.
Need to collaborate with spectograph maker and telescope.
