South Pole Telescope Software Systems: Control, Monitoring, and Data
  Acquisition
  We present the software system used to control and operate the South Pole
Telescope. The South Pole Telescope is a 10-meter millimeter-wavelength
telescope designed to measure anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background
(CMB) at arcminute angular resolution. In the austral summer of 2011/12, the
SPT was equipped with a new polarization-sensitive camera, which consists of
1536 transition-edge sensor bolometers. The bolometers are read out using 36
independent digital frequency multiplexing (\dfmux) readout boards, each with
its own embedded processors. These autonomous boards control and read out data
from the focal plane with on-board software and firmware. An overall control
software system running on a separate control computer controls the \dfmux
boards, the cryostat and all other aspects of telescope operation. This control
software collects and monitors data in real-time, and stores the data to disk
for transfer to the United States for analysis.
