The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) will consist of two large arrays with more than 100 Cherenkov telescopes, in addition to a large number of scientific instruments. These characterise the atmospheric conditions, calibrate the detectors, and monitor the safety operation aspects of all devices. All these instruments will produce a large volume of data (petabytes per year). The CTAO Array Control and Data Acquisition System (ACADA) is the high-level software package developed to control instruments in the observatory, and to perform data acquisition. The DESY team of researchers and computing experts are leading several of the ACADA work-packages for CTAO.

The ACADA instrument operation software: the heart of the ACADA system
The DESY team is building up the central element that links all other software elements of the ACADA system ("Resource manager", and "Central control" in the figure). It implements the different instrument operation modes needed to achieve the scientific objectives of CTAO. The team also develops the graphical user interface for the operators of the array ("Human machine interface"), as well as the configuration database for ACADA.

The DESY ACADA software validation and verification center
The DESY team has established a test setup to validate the ACADA software prior to its deployment on site. This is used for continuous integration as part of the development process of ACADA software, as well as for quality assurance and performance testing.