Abstract:
In this paper, we describe the details of telescope controller design for the 50/80 cm Schmidt telescope at the
Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciencES. The GUI based software for commanding the telescope
is developed in Visual C++. The hardware architecture features a distributed network of microcontrollers over
CAN. The basic functionality can also be implemented using the dedicated RS232 port per board. The controller
is able to perform with negligible rms velocity errors. At fine speeds limit cycles are exhibited due to nonlinear
friction. At speeds over 3.90 × 10−02 radians/sec, the PI controller performs with peak errors less than 1%.
