Applied Computer Science for GGOS Observatories

Introduction.- Writing code for Scientific Software.- Using a code toolbox.- Controlling a Laser Ranging System.- Controlling a VLBI system from remote.- Coordination, communication and automation for the GGOS.- A Style Guide for Geodetic Software in C and C++.- Precise telescope mount model parameters based on the least squares method.

Alexander Neidhardt was born on May the 23rd, 1975, in Bad Kötzting, Germany, as the son of a banker and a seamstress. He grew up in the countryside of the Bavarian forest, a wooded low-mountain region close to the Czech border. His parents supported his interest in technology and his grandfather was the defining person for him, showing the value of applying knowledge as craftsman for woodwork. After his visit of the secondary school and a following education at the specialized secondary school (Fachoberschule) in Cham, Germany, with a focus on technical subjects, he finished as one of the best graduates of the year 1993.

After his military service, he studied technical computer science (1994-1998) and got his first diploma degree in applied computer science at the Regensburg technical university of applied sciences in the year 1998. During his studies, he had first contact to geodesy as laser ranging operator and during several internships as programmer at the Wettzell fundamental station. To consolidate his theoretical background, he continued his education in computer science at the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, with specializations in communication systems, operating systems, image processing and pattern matching, and physics (1998-2001). He graduated with a further diploma degree writing a diploma thesis at the Fraunhofer Institute of Integrated Circuits at Erlangen, Germany, in the field of automatic code generation in combination with hardware and software co-design in the year 2001. To apply for a PhD, he worked as research scientist and software engineer of the Research Facility Satellite Geodesy (Forschungseinrichtung Satellitengeodäsie, FESG) of the Technical University of Munich, Germany, at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell (2001-2005). In 2005, the work resulted in a doctoral thesis about the improvement of the data management of inhomogeneous computer networks of geodetic infrastructures on the basis of