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The installation of the complete VLT telescope control system on the observatory is a complex task. It is important that the various components of the system have been carefully tested and integrated before. This paper presents the ESO strategy to pre-installation testing. In particular, results and experiences from pre-erection tests of the telescope structure are presented. In these tests, the complete telescope structure, including both axes with encoders and drives, has been built up at the premises of the European manufacturer (in Milan, Italy). These tests provide valuable input for the erection on Paranal. To this system, ESO added control electronics and software, which was tested with the telescope. The complete positioning of both main axes is under test, including slewing and tracking performance tests, as far as this is possible without using the sky. The VLT control software and most parts of the VLT control electronics have also been tested on the NTT on La Silla. Since the NTT upgrade software is practically a subset of the VLT software, the NTT tests have provided invaluable feedback for the VLT. The NTT tests are described in a separate paper presented at this conference. The paper also briefly discusses subsystem tests, and presents results from some of the subsystem tests performed in Europe.© (1997) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only. |
