Case Study: Gran Telescopio Canarias achieves real-time telescope control with Wind River VxWorks

Gran Telescopio Canarias runs the world's largest optical telescope in real time with Wind River VxWorks since 2009

The Gran Telescopio Canarias, the world's largest single-aperture optical telescope, required an extremely sophisticated and high-performance IT architecture to control its subsystems and ensure real-time operation. Its challenge was to coordinate a distributed network of equipment to compensate for environmental variables while providing a homogenous user interface. Wind River provided its VxWorks real-time operating system to meet these stringent performance requirements.

Wind River's solution, VxWorks, delivered the stable and high-performance real-time operating system needed for the telescope's critical functions. This allowed astronomers to concentrate on developing applications rather than configuring the OS, ensuring that the many disparate systems work in tight, real-time coordination. As a result, the telescope has successfully operated since 2009, providing a precious commodity for astronomers to study the furthest cosmic bodies.

Gran Telescopio Canarias