A compact Multi-core CPU based adaptive optics real-time controller

The performance of Adaptive Optics (AO) real-time controller based on Central Processing Unit (CPU) has significantly progressed due to the introduction of the high speed frame-grabber and a 4-cores CPU, which make it possible to process at frequency over 2000 Hz for 4-meter-class telescope and to integrate the real-time task and the user interface program in this compact device. The detailed architecture of this computation system is demonstrated in this paper, and the performance and suitability of this architecture is also discussed by measuring the latency of the controller processing via an adaptive optics emulator system with 16 times 16 and 32 times 32 sub-aperture, and the overall typical processing time is 61 us and 322 us respectively. Test result turns out that it is well suited for the next generation 4-meter-class adaptive optics system and it is possible to process at frequency over 2000 Hz for a 3000-element AO system in 10-meter-class telescope with one board of art-of-the-state computer and a frame-grabber. Comparison with GPU and FPGA based architecture is also discussed in this paper.