MAVIS: conceptual architecture of the instrument control software

In this paper, we describe the preliminary architecture of the Software for the Instrument Control System (ICSS) of MAVIS, the new MCAO Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph for ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The instrument successfully passed its phase A in May 2020 and will start phase B in March 2021. ICSS is in charge of controlling all the motorized functions, managing the scientific exposures, monitoring the status of the system and coordinating the sequence of operations from the Observing Blocks receiving to the collection of the scientific data. A challenge from the SW point of view is that MAVIS, besides being an instrument for VLT, will use the ELT-SW framework, which is currently under development. A dedicated ELT/VLT gateway will provide the interfaces with the Observation Handling Subsystem (OHS), the Archive System, the Telescope Control System (TCS) and the AOF.