Poster Abstracts

April 2004

Stellar Photometry Using a LabVIEW Interface

VaRon Felder, Computer Science and Chakila Tillie, Nuclear Engineering
Faculty Mentors: Drs. James Payne and Donald Walter
South Carolina State University

Optical studies of Beta Persei an Algol-class star system, have been conducted using a solid-state photometer and 12-inch Mead telescope. A LabVIEW virtual instrument (VI) was developed to collect and analyze the data from the photometer. This is the first phase of the project to study the periodicity of this system and the RS Canum Venaticorum system V711 Tau in both the optical and radio. It is planned to extend the work to develop a VI that will interface with an SBIG 7 CCD camera mounted on the same 12-inch Mead telescope.

This work has been supported by NASA-MURED through grant NCC 5-454 awarded to South Carolina State University

MOTOR DRIVE INITIALIZATION AND CONTROL FOR A RADIO TELESCOPE

Erika Terry, Tanjan'k Waymer, Vincent Bates and Marvin Fulton
Faculty Mentors: Drs. Hasanul A. Basher and Isa Saliman

Proper positioning of the motors of a two-axis radio-telescope drive system requires that the motors be able to rotate in clockwise or counter-clockwise direction depending upon their initial and final positions. This function of the drive system is accomplished by activating and deactivating appropriate relays in the motor control circuit. Placing the motor shaft at a desired position depends very much on the initial (reference) position defined. Initialization is the process of defining this reference position and forms a critical process in the overall system control. The initialization process is accomplished here by equipping the motor with lower and upper limit switches, with the lower limit switch used in the initialization process. A diode is connected across the limit switch and up to 24 V can appear across it when the switch is depressed. The LabVIEW software package is used to generate a virtual instrument (vi) to activate the relays and another vi to continuously read the voltage from the diode via a data-acquisition-board. We summarize the results of our work to date in developing a complete motor control system to remotely operate a radio telescope via the Internet.

This work was supported by a subgrant from Tennessee State University (TSU) to South Carolina State University (SCSU) under NASA-URC NCCW-0085 awarded to TSU and awards to SCSU from NASA-MU-SPIN under NCC 5-534 and NASA-MURED under NCC5-454.