| Abstract | The National Research Council of Canada Herzberg (NRC-H) is developing the Herzberg Extensible Adaptive Real-time Toolkit (HEART) for the next generation of Adaptive Optics (AO) systems. HEART is a distributed and scalable software framework that includes a collection of libraries, tools and other software that can be assembled to construct a wide variety of real-time AO control systems. HEART is currently under development, implemented in C/C++, and is intended to run on off-the-shelf CPUs; HEART has evolved from the NRC-H design of the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS) Real Time Controller (RTC) for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which passed its final design review. HEART is principally designed for Laser Guide Star (LGS) Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO), however the modular architecture of HEART lends itself to be restructured for different forms of AO systems, such as: Single Conjugate Adaptive Optics (SCAO), Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics (LTAO), Ground Layer Adaptive Optics (GLAO), and Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO). The primary goal of HEART is to reduce the development time and cost of next generation AO control systems, while providing more reliable and robust control software that minimizes maintenance effort and promotes code reusability. |
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