Automated Scheduling of the New Robotic Telescope

The New Robotic Telescope, like the Liverpool Telescope before it,
will automatically construct it's own observing programme based on a
scheduling algorithm. This algorithm will account for factors such as
science priority, weather and target altitude in order to maximise the
productivity of the facility. The purpose of this project is to
develop the robotic scheduling model for the NRT, accounting for the
new science priorities of the coming decades and the specific project
goals of the telescope. We will use the 15+ year observing history of
the LT as a resource to develop machine learning models to optimise
the approach, and towards the end of the project we will use the
current telescope as a testbed to validate the software products.