Evaluation of Controllers and Development of a New In-House Controller for the Teledyne HxRG Focal Plane Array for the IRSIS Satellite Payload

Abstract

The Infrared Astronomy Group (Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics) at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is presently developing controllers for the Teledyne HxRG Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs) to be used on board the Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging Survey (IRSIS) satellite payload. In this paper, we discuss the results of our tests with different FPA controllers such as the Astronomical Research Cameras (ARC) controller, Teledyne’s SIDECAR ASIC as well as our new in-house designed Array controller. As part of the development phase of the IRSIS instrument, which is an optical fiber-based Integral Field Unit (IFU) Near-Infrared (NIR) Spectrometer, a laboratory model with limited NIR bandwidth was built which consisted of various subsystems like a Ritchey–Chretien (RC) 30[Formula: see text]cm telescope, optical fiber IFU, spectrometer optics, and the Teledyne H2RG detector module. We discuss the various developments during the building and testing of the IRSIS laboratory model and the technical aspects of the prototype in-house H2RG controller.