Autonomous software: Myth or magic?

TL;DR

This paper examines the development and implications of an autonomous system for real-time micro-lensing event follow-up, highlighting its potential to automate detection and monitoring of celestial phenomena.

Contribution

It presents a fully autonomous system that automatically detects, prioritizes, and follows up on micro-lensing anomalies, advancing autonomous astronomical observation capabilities.

Findings

Real-time detection and follow-up of micro-lensing events

Automated analysis and scheduling of observations

Potential for autonomous planetary detection

Abstract

We discuss work by the eSTAR project which demonstrates a fully closed loop autonomous system for the follow up of possible micro-lensing anomalies. Not only are the initial micro-lensing detections followed up in real time, but ongoing events are prioritised and continually monitored, with the returned data being analysed automatically. If the ``smart software'' running the observing campaign detects a planet-like anomaly, further follow-up will be scheduled autonomously and other telescopes and telescope networks alerted to the possible planetary detection. We further discuss the implications of this, and how such projects can be used to build more general autonomous observing and control systems.