Skynet grew out of a need to automatically trigger robotic telescopes to get follow up observations of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) as quickly as possible. When a burst is detected by orbiting satillites, an alert is sent out over the internet within seconds. When these alerts arrive, teams of scientists across the globe quickly react to get telescopes onto the target object. Skynet was designed to remove the human element from this response. When a GRB alert arrives, Skynet automatically parses the message and dispatches jobs to the telescopes on the system.

When Skynet isn't chasing GRBs, it is working on users individual jobs. These observations can be built using the Skynet web interface from any computer with an internet connection. Jobs are assigned a priority level based on the type of observation and the users access level.

Jobs are sent from the central Skynet computer to each telescope. At the remote sites, a program called a "Termintor" recieves the job and actually carries out the observation. The data is then sent back from the remote site to be stored on a raid array where the end user can retrieve it using eithor the web interface or ftp.

Skynet was designed to be flexable in the hardware that it is able to control. The system currently uses The Sky for telescope mount control and Maxim DL for camera control. Any mount/camera combination that can interface with this software can be controlled by Skynet. In addition, any ASCOM complient system should be able to be integrated to the system.