40th Tango Community meeting at ALBA

Upgradation and Modernization of the Tango based GMRT Control (TGC) System.

8 Jun 2026, 11:35

20m

Maxwell Auditorium (ALBA Synchrotron)

Talk Facility Status Reports Facility Status Reports

Speaker

Mr Jitendra Kodilkar (National Centre For Radio Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research)

Description

Upgradation and Modernization of the Tango based GMRT Control (TGC) System.

Jitendra Kodilkar 1 , Raj Uprade 1, Bhavesh Kunbi 1, Mayur Bhagade 2, Isha Gothwad 3, Anil Raut 1, Ishwara Chandra 1, Yogesh Wadadekar 1, Yashwant Gupta 1

1 National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune University Campus, Pune, India.
2 Government College of Engineering & Research, Avasari Khurd, Pune, India
3 S. B. Jain Institute of Technology Management & Research, Nagpur, India

The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT), operated by the NCRA-TIFR, India, is a pioneering Low Frequency Radio Interferometer & Beam-former Telescope which consists of 30 parabolic antennas spread over ~30 km in diameter. The uGMRT upgraded its legacy Control & Monitoring system from the 1990s by implementing the Tango-based GMRT Control (TGC) system, which has been in operation since 2019. The GMRT serves as a pathfinder for the SKA Telescope-Manager work-package, validating key design concepts such as a supporting hierarchical, specification-driven control nodes, dynamic sub-arrays, and a role-based User Interface along with the PANIC based alarm management, and HDB++ based archiving system.

The Local Monitoring & Control (LMC) system was initially developed a decade ago using Tango 9.2.5, Python 2.7, PyQt 4.8, and Taurus 3.7 on Linux Ubuntu 16.04 OS platform, which underwent several upgrades. The previous mid-term updates ported it to Ubuntu 20.04 while retaining the legacy version of Tango-Framework. With the obsolescence of Python 2, PyQt4, and older OpenJDK-8- 8 Java version, a major modernization is performed on Ubuntu 24.04 OS using the CONDA Package-Manager environment. The upgraded system now uses Tango 9.4, Python 3.9, PyQt 5.12 /Taurus 5.2, and OpenJDK-17, ensuring long-term maintainability, stability, and compatibility without altering legacy functionality.

The migration involved extensive manual and automated code transformations. Python scripts and GUIs were converted using tools such as ‘2to3-3.9’ and ‘pyqt4topyqt5’ converters, with addressing challenges by manually editing codes such as a indentation syntax, UTF-8 handling, signal & Event method changes, and variety of functionality gaps. Java code migration to OpenJDK-17 required updating dependencies, including Hibernate-ORM and Jython libraries, optimizing Data-base fetch strategies, resolving class-paths conflicts, ANTLR library issues, and authentication challenges. The CONDA environment facilitated installation and testing of around 90 software packages, including compilers, database tools, Tango libraries, and GUI frameworks. This approach was preferred over other package managers such as UV/Pixi for reproducibility, isolation, and dependency control.

Upgrades also stabilized the GMRT Aggregation or Sub-array Control Nodes, improving Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) by addressing Tango client-server disconnections and incomplete database transactions issues. The system now supports more reliable astronomical observations and technical tests. Overall, this modernization ensures that GMRT’s TGC system remains robust, secure, and compatible with modern Tango frameworks while maintaining full legacy support.