Video: Warping a telescope lens to match atmospheric distortion

NIWeek demo simulates atmospheric distortion collecting 500 high-resolution frames per second through machine vision, into an FPGA into four rack-mounted controllers that instruct more than 1,000 actuators how to change a 42 meter diameter telescope lens in less than 2 milliseconds.

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Warping a telescope lens to match atmospheric distortion: A new European ground-based telescope uses NI-based parallel computing connected via a high-bandwidth backplane (via PXI System Alliance) to quickly adapt the lens to atmospheric distortions. The demo simulates atmospheric distortion with a flame, collecting 500 high-resolution frames per second through machine vision, into an FPGA into four rack-mounted controllers that instruct more than 1,000 actuators how to change the 42 meter diameter telescope lens, all in less than 2 milliseconds, explained Patrick Webb, NI PXI Systems, product marketing manager. The computational equivalent of 64 interconnected computer nodes could control and balance 320,000 inverted pendulums. Just 5 years ago, balancing one pendulum was an impressive demo, Webb said.

See other Control Engineering videos at www.controleng.com/videos.

See more video from NI at http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-12568.

Other NIWeek 2010 developments.

- Edited by Mark T. Hoske, Control Engineering, www.controleng.com