Experiences in Applying Model Driven Engineering to the Telescope and Instrument Control System Domain

The development of control systems for large telescopes is frequently challenged by the combination of research and industrial development processes, the bridging of astronomical and engineering domains, the long development and maintenance time-line, and the need to support multiple hardware and software platforms. This paper illustrates the application of a model driven engineering approach to mitigate some of these recurring issues. It describes the lessons learned from introducing a modeling language and creating model transformations for analysis, documentation, simulation, validation, and code generation.