Astrobots Team

EPFL Laboratories

There are several EPFL laboratories which are/were involved in this group:

   Current Involvement:

• Laboratory of Astrophysics (LASTRO)
• Laboratory of Galaxy Evolution and Spectral Modeling (GalSpec)

   Former Involvement:

• Laboratory of Robotic Systems (LSRO)
• Coordination and Interaction Systems group (REACT)

Current Team Members

• Jean-Paul Kneib (Professor, LASTRO)
• Michaela Hirschmann (Professor, GalSpec)
• Markus Thurneysen (Professor, HEPIA)
• Maxime Rombach (Mechanical Engineer, LASTRO)
• Malak Galal (Optical Engineer, LASTRO)
• Diane Chapuis (Systems Engineer, LASTRO)

Former Team Members

• Mohamed Bouri (LSRO)
• Hannes Bleuler (LSRO)
• Denis Gillet (REACT)
• Stefane Caseiro (LSRO)
• Luzius Gregor Kronig (LSRO)
• Loic Grossen (LASTRO)
• Matin Macktoobian (REACT)
• Ricardo Araújo (LASTRO)

Main Current Partners

The Astrobots Group is currently involved in various projects to build the telescopes of the next generation. These include European-led projects such as the Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST), the BlueMuse integral-field-spectrograph to installed on the Very Large Telescope (VLT), and the MOSAIC instrument to be used for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). There are also other projects like the American Spec-S5 as the next stage of the successful ongoing survey, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Chinese MUltiplexed Survey Telescope (MUST).

The above-mentioned projects require world-wide collaborations, as in such big projects, each institution has a particular expertise and is responsible for its corresponding sub-system.

EPFL is mostly involved in the fiber positioner part where the Astrobots Group has extensive expertise in. For the MUST project, EPFL is in collaboration with the Tsinghua team; for the Spec-S5 project, EPFL is collaborating with the team from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and for the other European-led projects such as WST, MOSAIC, and BlueMUSE, EPFL is a part of the consortium of each project.

Former Collaborations

• For the DESI project, we have developed a strong collaboration with the DESI project team in Berkeley and the University of Michigan, as well as with the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid Group.
• For the MOONS project, we were in a collaboration with the ATC in Edinbourgh.
• For the PFS project, we were in contact with the JPL/Caltech group.
• For the SLOAN-V project, we were collaborating with the Ohio State university and the University of Washington.