The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) on the Subaru Telescope — featuring New Scale’s Cobra Fiber Positioners — has begun scientific operations.
This milestone highlights our leadership in compact, high-precision motion systems: our Cobra actuators deliver sub-20-micron accuracy to align each of the PFS’s ~2,400 optical fibers with their celestial targets.
This precision enables the PFS to capture light from thousands of objects simultaneously, advancing the study of galaxy formation and the evolution of the universe.
Figure 1: Example of data obtained by PFS observing celestial objects in the Andromeda Galaxy region. On the left, the positions of the PFS fibers configured to observe individual celestial objects are marked by circles (stars and galaxies for science), squares (bright stars for calibration purposes), and triangles (just to take sky spectra) on an image of the Andromeda Galaxy taken with HSC (Hyper Suprime-Cam) (Credit: HSC Project/NAOJ with the spectra obtained by PFS.)
Data collection and analysis is made possible by the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS), a fiber-fed multi-object spectrometer for the Subaru Telescope that can conduct a variety of targeted surveys for studies of dark energy, galaxy evolution, and galactic archaeology. The key to the instrument is a high-density array of fiber positioners placed at the prime focus of the Subaru Telescope. The system uses 2,394 individual “SCARA robot” mechanisms that are 7.7mm in diameter, using two custom rotary piezoelectric motors to individually position each of the optical fibers within a 9.5mm radius patrol region.
Program success is a proof point of New Scale’s engineering and manufacturing capabilities, including:
- High volume production: 2550 custom motion systems delivered and deployed
- Validated system design, quality assurance and testing processes: Proving out >400k cycle life, 5 µm fiber positioning with < 0.3-degree fiber tilt and < 25 µm fiber defocus, holding position without power and zero backlash.
- Robust supply chain: 32 unique Cobra components
Learn more about New Scale Technologies’ custom engineering of motors and micro motion systems for government research programs.
Download the white paper: Cobra Fiber Positioner in Full-Scale Production
