Internal Use Cases and Workflows

Telescope

• Want to limit the number of people on the summit
• Definitely need to control from base
• Would be nice to have option to control remotely
• Remotely operated telescopes
  • SOAR
• Controls
  • Goal: mostly robotic -- want as little human interaction as possible during normal operation
• Risks
  • Always keep somebody on the summit
  • Trust sensors up to a point

Camera Remote Access

The camera team would like to enable remote access to the instrument itself.

• Risks:
  • Hardware designed to self-protect against damage. A basic principle of camera design.
  • Danger is of getting into a faulty configuration that takes time to recover from, meaning
    • Lost time
    • Lost data
  • Denial-of-Service from too many diagnostic inquiries, or from expensive inquiries
  • If we give rules that are likely to be broken, let's figure out how to still be safe:
    • Have a procedure for violating the restrictions
    • Human ability in the loop -- "Three people say ..."
• Use cases:
  1. Remote monitoring -- read-only
     • Visualization of raw data
     • Diagnostics
  2. Remote troubleshooting
     • During initial deployment, when working out kinks
     • Once operation begins, troubleshooting only necessary in exceptional cases, since normal operation is automated
     • Most troubleshooting will be passive data collection
     • Active troubleshooting -- tweaking settings -- will be rare and will be done by experts, who may not be on the mountaintop when we need help
• Security design (from perspective of user interface)
  • A human will be on the summit during operation
  • Base facility control system is an extension of the control system on the summit
    • A copy of the console
    • Rich feedback from camera
    • Dictates when the camera can take exposures
  • Changes to camera settings
    • What are they?
      • breaking automated control & cadence
      • changing parameters and thresholds
      • opening, closing valves
      • defeating alarms
    • Require possession of "token" to make changes (singular if interface doesn't allow concurrency, or multiple if it does)
    • "Token" is approved by on-site operator, who monitors changes being made
      • Can only be granted to known experts; built in to camera control software
      • Operator monitors changes being made -- may not have expert knowledge of all of them, but can provide a sanity check
      • Auth'n and security gated by both computer (password, VPN, etc) and human (telescope operator)
      • Need to trust control software. How much do we trust software running on operator's machine? How much do we need to -- can we run it all on the server side?
  • Does the remote operator's location make a difference?
    • from base facility
    • from nearby, for example Santiago
    • from anywhere else in the world
    • from an unsecure computer or location