ICALEPCS2023 - List of Authors (Devereux, D.)

Paper	Title	Page
TH1BCO04	Asynchronous Execution of Tango Commands in the SKA Telescope Control System: An Alternative to the Tango Async Device	1108
	B.A. Ojur, A.J. Venter SARAO, Cape Town, South Africa D. Devereux CSIRO, Clayton, Australia D. Devereux, S.N. Twum, S. Vrcic SKAO, Macclesfield, United Kingdom
	Equipment controlled by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Control System will have a TANGO interface for control and monitoring. Commands on TANGO device servers have a 3000 milliseconds window to complete their execution and return to the client. This timeout places a limitation on some commands used on SKA TANGO devices which take longer than the 3000 milliseconds window to complete; the threshold is more stricter in the SKA Control System (CS) Guidelines. Such a command, identified as a Long Running Command (LRC), needs to be executed asynchronously to circumvent the timeout. TANGO has support for an asynchronous device which allows commands to be executed slower than 3000 milliseconds by using a coroutine to put the task on an event loop. During the exploration of this, a decision was made to implement a custom approach in our base repository which all devices depend on. In this approach, every command annotated as ¿long running¿ is handed over to a thread to complete the task and its progress is tracked through attributes. These attributes report the queued commands along with their progress, status and results. The client is provided with a unique identifier which can be used to track the execution of the LRC and take further action based on the outcome of that command. LRCs can be aborted safely using a custom TANGO command. We present the reference design and implementation of the Long Running Commands for the SKA Controls System.
	Slides TH1BCO04 [0.674 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TH1BCO04
About •	Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 24 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 20 December 2023 — Issued ※ 22 December 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

THPDP077	Tango Integration of the SKA-Low Power and Signal Distribution System	1526
	E.L. Arandjelovic, U.K. Pedersen OSL, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom E.L. Arandjelovic, D. Devereux, U.K. Pedersen SKAO, Macclesfield, United Kingdom D. Devereux CSIRO, Clayton, Australia J. Engelbrecht VIVO, Somerset West, South Africa
	Funding: Square Kilometre Array Observatory The Power and Signal Distribution System (PaSD) is a key component of the SKA-Low telescope, responsible for control and monitoring of local power to the electronic components of the RF signal chain for the antennas, and collecting the RF signals for transmission to the Central Processing Facility. The system comprises "SMART boxes" (SMART: Small Modular Aggregation and RFoF Trunk) which each connect directly to around 10 antennas to provide local monitoring and control, and one Field Node Distribution Hub (FNDH) per station which distributes power to all the SMART boxes and provides a communications gateway as well as additional local monitoring. All communication to the SMART boxes is funnelled through the FNDH on a multi-drop serial bus using the Modbus ASCII protocol. This paper will describe how the PaSD will be integrated into the Tango-based SKA-Low Monitoring Control and Calibration Subsystem (MCCS) software, including the facility for a drop-in Python simulator which can be used to test the software.
	Poster THPDP077 [20.237 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP077
About •	Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 14 December 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

THPDP079	Integration of Bespoke Daq Software with Tango Controls in the SKAO Software Framework: From Problems to Progress	1533
	A.J. Clemens OSL, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom D. Devereux CSIRO, Clayton, Australia D. Devereux SKAO, Macclesfield, United Kingdom A. Magro ISSA, Msida, Malta
	The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) project is an international effort to build two radio interferometers in South Africa and Australia to form one Observatory monitored and controlled from the global headquarters in the United Kingdom at Jodrell Bank. The Monitoring, Control and Calibration System (MCCS) is the "front-end" management software for the Low telescope which provides monitoring and control capabilities as well as implementing calibration processes and providing complex diagnostics support. Once completed the Low telescope will boast over 130, 000 individual log-periodic antennas and so the scale of the data generated will be huge. It is estimated that an average of 8 terabits per second of data will be transferred from the SKAO telescopes in both countries to Central Processing Facilities (CPFs) located at the telescope sites. In order to keep pace with this magnitude of data production an equally impressive data acquisition (DAQ) system is required. This paper outlines the challenges encountered and solutions adopted whilst incorporating a bespoke DAQ library within the SKAO’s Kubernetes-Tango ecosystem in the MCCS subsystem in order to allow high speed data capture whilst maintaining a consistent deployment experience.
	Poster THPDP079 [0.981 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP079
About •	Received ※ 02 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023
Cite •	reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

Paper

Title

Page

Asynchronous Execution of Tango Commands in the SKA Telescope Control System: An Alternative to the Tango Async Device

1108

B.A. Ojur, A.J. Venter
SARAO, Cape Town, South Africa
D. Devereux
CSIRO, Clayton, Australia
D. Devereux, S.N. Twum, S. Vrcic
SKAO, Macclesfield, United Kingdom

Equipment controlled by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Control System will have a TANGO interface for control and monitoring. Commands on TANGO device servers have a 3000 milliseconds window to complete their execution and return to the client. This timeout places a limitation on some commands used on SKA TANGO devices which take longer than the 3000 milliseconds window to complete; the threshold is more stricter in the SKA Control System (CS) Guidelines. Such a command, identified as a Long Running Command (LRC), needs to be executed asynchronously to circumvent the timeout. TANGO has support for an asynchronous device which allows commands to be executed slower than 3000 milliseconds by using a coroutine to put the task on an event loop. During the exploration of this, a decision was made to implement a custom approach in our base repository which all devices depend on. In this approach, every command annotated as ¿long running¿ is handed over to a thread to complete the task and its progress is tracked through attributes. These attributes report the queued commands along with their progress, status and results. The client is provided with a unique identifier which can be used to track the execution of the LRC and take further action based on the outcome of that command. LRCs can be aborted safely using a custom TANGO command. We present the reference design and implementation of the Long Running Commands for the SKA Controls System.

Slides TH1BCO04 [0.674 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TH1BCO04

About •

Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 24 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 20 December 2023 — Issued ※ 22 December 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

THPDP077

Tango Integration of the SKA-Low Power and Signal Distribution System

1526

E.L. Arandjelovic, U.K. Pedersen
OSL, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
E.L. Arandjelovic, D. Devereux, U.K. Pedersen
SKAO, Macclesfield, United Kingdom
D. Devereux
CSIRO, Clayton, Australia
J. Engelbrecht
VIVO, Somerset West, South Africa

Funding: Square Kilometre Array Observatory
The Power and Signal Distribution System (PaSD) is a key component of the SKA-Low telescope, responsible for control and monitoring of local power to the electronic components of the RF signal chain for the antennas, and collecting the RF signals for transmission to the Central Processing Facility. The system comprises "SMART boxes" (SMART: Small Modular Aggregation and RFoF Trunk) which each connect directly to around 10 antennas to provide local monitoring and control, and one Field Node Distribution Hub (FNDH) per station which distributes power to all the SMART boxes and provides a communications gateway as well as additional local monitoring. All communication to the SMART boxes is funnelled through the FNDH on a multi-drop serial bus using the Modbus ASCII protocol. This paper will describe how the PaSD will be integrated into the Tango-based SKA-Low Monitoring Control and Calibration Subsystem (MCCS) software, including the facility for a drop-in Python simulator which can be used to test the software.

Poster THPDP077 [20.237 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP077

About •

Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 14 December 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)

THPDP079

Integration of Bespoke Daq Software with Tango Controls in the SKAO Software Framework: From Problems to Progress

1533

A.J. Clemens
OSL, St Ives, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
D. Devereux
CSIRO, Clayton, Australia
D. Devereux
SKAO, Macclesfield, United Kingdom
A. Magro
ISSA, Msida, Malta

The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) project is an international effort to build two radio interferometers in South Africa and Australia to form one Observatory monitored and controlled from the global headquarters in the United Kingdom at Jodrell Bank. The Monitoring, Control and Calibration System (MCCS) is the "front-end" management software for the Low telescope which provides monitoring and control capabilities as well as implementing calibration processes and providing complex diagnostics support. Once completed the Low telescope will boast over 130, 000 individual log-periodic antennas and so the scale of the data generated will be huge. It is estimated that an average of 8 terabits per second of data will be transferred from the SKAO telescopes in both countries to Central Processing Facilities (CPFs) located at the telescope sites. In order to keep pace with this magnitude of data production an equally impressive data acquisition (DAQ) system is required. This paper outlines the challenges encountered and solutions adopted whilst incorporating a bespoke DAQ library within the SKAO’s Kubernetes-Tango ecosystem in the MCCS subsystem in order to allow high speed data capture whilst maintaining a consistent deployment experience.

Poster THPDP079 [0.981 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP079

About •

Received ※ 02 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023

Cite •

reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)