Study and automation of a test system for space instrument
calibration

Abstract: Nowadays the independency of systems is a valuable requirement due to its
implications in saving cost and time. Systems that are constantly dependent
on an operator for their survival are outdated. Everyday more users demand
from a system to be autonomous, robust and reliable. This was the need
found at the CESR laboratory. A test system, used for space instrument
tuning before launch, needed to be manually manipulated. This resulted in
the operators’ time loss and long duration of instrument calibrations.

Through this work a program for the automation of a calibration test system
from the CESR (Centre d’Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements) was developed and
added to improve a previous version. The test system is used to tune space
instruments before launch. The main parts of the system are an ion beam, a
mass spectrometer, an ion detector and a vacuum chamber. The configuration
of the system includes some of the next features: on/off of the beam,
tuning current intensity, positioning the ion beam or the instrument
located in the chamber, data handling, data saving, reading of the
configuration parameters, etc.

LabWindows/CVI, National Instruments programming software, was used for
generating the program. Connections between the system and the PC were done
either through two RS232 serial ports (COM1 and COM2), or through two
National Instrument acquisition cards connected to the PC.

Overall study of the system was needed. An extensive revision of the work
done for the automation of the system was done in order to suggest
modifications in some malfunctions, and to add new features. Modifications
were made to the existing version to improve its performance. New
functionalities that control different motors in the system were developed.
And finally, the full program was integrated for future use. A full
documentation was developed in parallel to the work for further reference.

A program resulted that can configure the system to a given state and
independently realize different desired scans to an instrument located in
the chamber. The motion of the instrument, the beam, and the step between
each position for consecutive scanning can be given. The intensity of the
current in the filament of the ion beam can also be varied.

This work shows the different stages of the project and the background
needed to develop it.