Paper
5 October 2012 'MOHAWK: a 4000-fiber positioner for DESpec
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
We present a concept for a 4000-fibre positioner for DESpec, based on the Echidna ‘tilting spine’ technology. The DESpec focal plane is 450mm across and curved, and the required pitch is ~6.75mm. The size, number of fibers and curvature are all comparable with various concept studies for similar instruments already undertaken at the AAO, but present new challenges in combination. A simple, low-cost, and highly modular design is presented, consisting of identical modules populated by identical spines. No show-stopping issues in accommodating either the curvature or the smaller pitch have been identified, and the actuators consist largely of off-the-shelf components. The actuators have been prototyped at AAO, and allow reconfiguration times of ~15s to reach position errors 7 microns or less. Straightforward designs for metrology, acquisition, and guiding are also proposed. The throughput losses of the entire positioner system are estimated to be ~15%, of which 6.3% is attributable to the tilting-spine technology.
© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Will Saunders, Greg Smith, James Gilbert, Rolf Muller, Michael Goodwin, Nick Staszak, Jurek Brzeski, Stan Miziarski, and Matthew Colless "'MOHAWK: a 4000-fiber positioner for DESpec", Proc. SPIE 8446, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy IV, 84464W (5 October 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.925724
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Cited by 14 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Spine

Actuators

Optical fibers

Telescopes

Spectrographs

Collimators

Connectors

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