Toolkit based extension of the SDSS control system

The capabilities of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Gunn et al. 1999) telescope control system have been enhanced by selective integration with components of the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) toolkit. Specifically, EPICS has been used to provide graphical displays of real-time and archived telescope performance data. The real-time data access has been accomplished by the addition of an EPICS database and associated communications infrastructure to the existing Telescope Performance Monitor computer. User access to SDSS archive files was implemented using the data source independent design of XARR, the EPICS data archive tool. Due to the modular design (Thuot et al. 1996) of the EPICS control system toolkit, the implementation of these enhancements was rapid and straightforward. Future use of the EPICS toolkit is planned as support for the integration of the SDSS operations environment.