O`Brien Alan

Abstract Reference: 31047
Identifier: P6.20
Presentation: Poster presentation
Key Theme: 6 Python in Astronomy

MAISIE: a Multipurpose Astronomical Instrument SImulator Environment (lightning talk)

Authors:
O'Brien Alan, Beard Steven, Geers Vincent, Klaassen Pamela

Instrument science simulators are a useful tool to test data reduction pipelines and preview data products. Often these simulators are built from the ground up for each project, leading to different designs, interfaces and capabilities. Adapting a simulator for another project is a difficult process differences in physical design can require large amounts of code refactoring and code duplication to change a single purpose simulator. MAISIE (Multi-purpose Astronomical Instrument Simulator Environment) provides a common framework for simulators. At the core of MAISIE is the Effector interface which is used to create to objects that simulate a single effect, the building blocks of the simulation. Combinations of Effectors can be used to simulate real components, sub-systems and systems in astronomical instruments. By providing a simple common design for instruments MAISIE aims to reduce effort required to design and build instrument simulators. A collection of well tested Effectors and tools are included within MAISIE for common, simple use cases. MAISIE has been designed to build simulators for single and multi-channel instruments, imagers and spectrometers, ground and space based instruments. For new and novel instruments, new functionality can be added by creating new classes that represent the added features and used with the existing simulator framework. MAISIE is available from GitHub and is written in Python, a freely available and open-source language. Recently MAISIE has been used to develop the simulator for the James Webb Space Telescope’ Mid-Infra Red Instrument Medium Resolution Spectrometer.