Performance monitoring of an AO instrument: the case of SINFONI

The present work is an attempt to characterize the performances of SINFONI, how we follow the history line of its key parameters and detect possible problems. We will make a review of the health check, with analysis of the long term trends. We will analyze the transfer function of the system during the calibrations and on sky, and evaluate their sensitivity and relation to external parameters. The study of the trends of the key parameters of the instrument provides useful analysis and monitoring to determine when an instrument eventually starts to degrade or to trace in time the different events in its maintenance. One can also determine when a major intervention or upgrade of the system might be necessary, where to focus the efforts to maximize the gain versus the work performed, and provides useful information on the status of the instrument prior to the intervention.