Description

The interferometer consists of :

• Five antennas, each controlled by a VME-based microprocessor,
• One off-axis optical telescope per antenna, for pointing,
• Two (4 on the long term, 2 simultaneous IF) receivers per antenna,
• Continuum detectors for each receiver and each antenna, read by a simple ADC by the ``phaser'' microprocessor.
• A 8-unit flexible correlator
• An HP-J200 computer named BURE1 for real-time command and acquisition,
• A dedicated Ethernet link between BURE1 and the correlator units.
• An HP-J200 computer named BURE2 for data reduction, with NFS mounted disks from the acquisition computer.
• A general Ethernet link between BURE1, BURE2, the antenna and receiver microprocessors, terminals, etc...
• Many cables : low and high quality for the IF transmission, twisted pairs for specific signals, etc...

The instrument may be used in several basic modes: OPTICAL pointing, INTERFEROMETER observing, or TEST mode. In addition, within the OBS program, there is a CONFIGURE mode, which is used to specify and modify the array configuration parameters. Optical pointing is done essentially to check the mechanical behaviour of the antennas. This is a very limited mode, with little associated software and it is seldom used.