The European Southern Observatory has selected Real-Time Innovations’ Data Distribution Service middleware for its Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Paranal, Chile.

Claimed to be the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory, it has made major scientific contributions using the VLT, including the first direct optical observation of a planet outside our solar system.

As a research facility continuously pushing the boundaries of adaptive optic (AO) science, the observatory needed a communications infrastructure that facilitated its requirement to regularly update the AO control system in line with scientific advances, and so it selected RTI’s DDS.

"We are excited that the observatory is using RTI software for telescope technology," said Stan Schneider, CEO of RTI. "We are proud to be part of these scientific advancements in observatory development."

The AO control system processes the enormous amount of data needed to calculate the inputs for more than one thousand actuators, which must precisely deform the telescope's mirrors in real time. The real-time communications fabric uses the DDS for data concentration and analysis. It was also flexible enough to provide the support services needed for low-throughput applications such as event and log notifications over the same infrastructure.

The obervatory has even more ambitious plans for the current VLT as well as for the future 42m European Extremely Large Telescope, and DDS is expected to satisfy the demanding scalability and real-time requirements of this even larger control system.

"We are very pleased with RTI," said Enrico Fedrigo, adaptive optics team leader at the observatory. “We needed a middleware that was modular and easy to understand, configure and optimise on the fly We intend to use RTI for additional projects in the future."

The observatory is supported by 14 countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It operates three observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor.

• Green Hills Software and RTI are expanding their longstanding partnership. As a result, RTI’s DDS middleware will gain support for Green Hills Software’s latest release of its safety and security-certified Integrity rtos.