Keyword: hardware
Paper Title Other Keywords Page
MO2BCO04 Applying Standardised Software Architectural Concepts to Design Robust and Adaptable PLC Solutions PLC, software, interface, controls 40
 
  • S.T. Huynh, B. Baranasic, M. Bueno, L. Feltrin Zanellatto, T. Freyermuth, P. Gessler, N. Jardón Bueno, N. Mashayekh, J. Tolkiehn
    EuXFEL, Schenefeld, Germany
 
  Between evolving requirements, additional feature requests and urgent maintenance tasks, the Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) at the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser Facility (EuXFEL) have become subjected to an array of demands. As the maintainability effort towards the existing systems peak, the requirement for a sustainable solution become an ever pressing concern. Ultimately, in order to provide a PLC code base which can easily be supported and adapted to, a reworking was required from the ground up in the form of a new suite of libraries and tools. Through this, it was possible to bring standardised software principals into PLC design and development, conjunctively offering an interface into the existing code base for ongoing support of legacy code. The set of libraries are developed by incorporating software engineering principles and design patterns in test driven development within a layered architecture. In defining clear interfaces across all the architectural layers - from hardware, to the software representation of hardware, and clusters of software devices, the complexity of PLC development decreases down into modular blocks of unit tested code. Regular tasks such as the addition of features, modifications or process control can easily be performed due to the adaptability, flexibility and modularity of the core PLC code base.  
slides icon Slides MO2BCO04 [0.910 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-MO2BCO04  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 08 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 November 2023 — Issued ※ 09 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
MO2BCO06 Embedded Controller Software Development Best Practices at the National Ignition Facility controls, embedded, software, interface 54
 
  • V.K. Gopalan, A.I. Barnes, C.M. Estes, J.M. Fisher, V.J. Hernandez, P. Kale, A. Pao, P.K. Singh
    LLNL, Livermore, USA
 
  Funding: This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
Software development practices such as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) are widely adopted by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) which helps to automate the software development, build, test, and deployment processes. However, using CI/CD in an embedded controller project poses several challenges due to the limited computing resources such as processing power, memory capacity and storage availability in such systems. This paper will present how CI/CD best practices were tailored and used to develop and deploy software for one of the NIF Master Oscillator Room (MOR) embedded controllers, which is based on custom designed hardware consisting of a microcontroller and a variety of laser sensors and drivers. The approach included the use of automated testing frameworks, customized build scripts, simulation environments, and an optimized build and deployment pipeline, leading to quicker release cycles, improved quality assurance and quicker defect correction. The paper will also detail the challenges faced during the development and deployment phases and the strategies used to overcome them. The experience gained with this methodology on a pilot project demonstrated that using CI/CD in embedded controller projects can be challenging, yet feasible with the right tools and strategies, and has the potential to be scaled and applied to the vast number of embedded controllers in the NIF control system.
LLNL Release Number: LLNL-ABS-848418
 
slides icon Slides MO2BCO06 [1.346 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-MO2BCO06  
About • Received ※ 29 September 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 November 2023 — Issued ※ 30 November 2023
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MO4AO03 The DESY Open Source FPGA Framework framework, FPGA, simulation, embedded 222
 
  • Ł. Butkowski, A. Bellandi, M. Büchler, B. Dursun, C. Gümüş, N. Omidsajedi, K. Schulz
    DESY, Hamburg, Germany
 
  Modern FPGA firmware development involves integrating various intellectual properties (IP), modules written in hardware description languages (HDL), high-level synthesis (HLS), and software/hardware CPUs with embedded Linux or bare-metal applications. This process may involve multiple tools from the same or different vendors, making it complex and challenging. Additionally, scientific institutions such as DESY require long-term maintenance and reproducibility for designs that may involve multiple developers, further complicating the process. To address these challenges, we have developed an open-source FPGA firmware framework (FWK) at DESY that streamlines development, facilitates collaboration, and reduces complexity. The FWK achieves this by providing an abstraction layer, a defined structure, and guidelines to create big FPGA designs with ease. FWK also generates documentation and address maps necessary for high-level software frameworks like ChimeraTK. This paper presents an overview and the idea of the FWK.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-MO4AO03  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 13 October 2023  
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MO4AO06 Overview and Outlook of FPGA Based Hardware Solutions for Data Synchronization, Acquisition and Processing at the Euxfel FPGA, FEL, timing, framework 233
 
  • B.J. Fernandes, F. Babies, T. Freyermuth, P. Gessler, I.S. Soekmen, H. Sotoudi Namin
    EuXFEL, Schenefeld, Germany
 
  The European X-Ray Free Electron Laser facility (EuXFEL) provides ultra short coherent X-Ray flashes, spaced by 220 nanoseconds and with a duration of less than 100 femtoseconds, in bursts of up to 2700 pulses every 100ms to several instruments. The facility has been using standardized Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based hardware platforms since the beginning of user operation in 2017. These are used for timing distribution, data processing from large 2D detectors, high speed digitizers for acquisition and processing of pulse signals, monitoring beam characteristics, and low latency communication protocol for pulse data vetoing and Machine Protection System (MPS). Our experience grows in tandem with user requests for more specific and challenging case studies, leading to tailor made hardware algorithms and setups. In some cases, these can be fulfilled with the integration of new hardware, where collaboration with companies for new and/or updated platforms is a key factor, or taking advantage of unused features in current setups. In this overview, we present the FPGA hardware based solutions used to fulfill EuXFEL’s requirements. We also present our efforts in integrating new solutions and possible development directions, including Machine Learning (ML) research, with the aim of bringing more accurate results and configurable setups to user experiments and facilitate communications with other platforms used in the facility, namely Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC).  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-MO4AO06  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 23 October 2023  
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MO4AO07 Status of the MicroTCA Based Beam Instrumentation DAQ Systems at GSI and FAIR timing, FPGA, detector, instrumentation 239
 
  • T. Hoffmann, H. Bräuning, R.N. Geißler, T. Milosic
    GSI, Darmstadt, Germany
 
  While the first FAIR accelerator buildings are soon to be completed, MicroTCA-based data acquisition sys-tems for FAIR beam instrumentation are ready for use. By using commercial off-the-shelf components as well as open hardware with in-house expertise in FPGA programming, there are now DAQ solutions for almost all major detector systems in MicroTCA in operation at the existing GSI accelerators. Applications span a wide range of detector systems and hardware, often taking advantage of the high channel density and data trans-mission bandwidth available with MicroTCA. All DAQ systems are synchronised and triggered using a com-prehensive White Rabbit based timing system. This allows correlation of the data from the distributed acquisition systems on a nanosecond scale. In this paper, we present some examples of our DAQ implemented in MicroTCA covering the range of beam current, tune, position and profile measurements. While the latter uses GigE cameras in combination with scintillating screens, the other applications are based on ADCs with different sampling frequencies between 125 MSa/s up to 2.5 GSa/s or latching scalers with up to 10 MHz latching frequency.  
slides icon Slides MO4AO07 [3.497 MB]  
poster icon Poster MO4AO07 [3.790 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-MO4AO07  
About • Received ※ 29 September 2023 — Revised ※ 07 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 November 2023 — Issued ※ 07 December 2023
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TU1BCO03 Systems Modelling, AI/ML Algorithms Applied to Control Systems monitoring, software, controls, software-component 257
 
  • S.A. Mnisi
    SARAO, Cape Town, South Africa
 
  Funding: National Research Foundation (South Africa)
The 64 receptor (with 20 more being built) radio telescope in the Karoo, South Africa, comprises a large number of devices and components connected to the Control-and-Monitoring (CAM) system via the Karoo Array Telescope Communication Protocol (KATCP). KATCP is used extensively for internal communications between CAM components and other subsystems. A KATCP interface exposes requests and sensors; sampling strategies are set on sensors, ranging from several updates per second to infrequent on-change updates. The sensor samples are of different types, from small integers to text fields. The samples and associated timestamps are permanently stored and made available for scientists, engineers and operators to query and analyze. This is a presentation on how to apply Machine Learning tools which utilize data-driven algorithms and statistical models to analyze sensor data sets and then draw inferences from identified patterns or make predictions based on them. The algorithms learn from the sensor data as they run against it, unlike traditional rules-based analytics systems that follow explicit instructions. Since this involves data preprocessing, we will go through how the MeerKAT telescope data storage infrastructure (called Katstore) manages the voluminous variety, velocity and volume of this data.
 
slides icon Slides TU1BCO03 [1.647 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TU1BCO03  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 09 November 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 21 December 2023
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TU2BCO02 Protection Layers Design for the High Luminosity LHC Full Remote Alignment System controls, software, alignment, operation 285
 
  • B. Fernández Adiego, E. Blanco Viñuela, A. Germinario, H. Mainaud Durand, M. Sosin
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  The Full Remote Alignment System (FRAS) is a complex measurement, alignment and control system designed to remotely align components of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) following its High Luminosity upgrade. The purpose of FRAS is to guarantee optimal alignment of the strong focusing magnets and associated components near the experimental interaction points, while at the same time limiting the radiation dose to which surveyors in the LHC tunnel are subjected. A failure in the FRAS control system, or an operator mistake, could provoke a non desired displacement of a component that could lead to damage of neighbouring equipment. Such an incident would incur a considerable repair cost both in terms of money and time. To mitigate this possibility, an exhaustive risk analysis of FRAS has been performed, with the design of protection layers according to the IEC 61511 standard proposed. This paper presents the different functional safety techniques applied to FRAS, reports on the current project status, and introduces the future activities to complete the safety life cycle.  
slides icon Slides TU2BCO02 [2.757 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TU2BCO02  
About • Received ※ 03 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023  
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TU2BCO06 Verification and Validation of the ESS Machine Protection System-of-Systems (MP-SoS) machine-protect, operation, interface, software 296
 
  • A. Nordt, M. Carroll, S. Gabourin, J. Gustafsson, S. Kövecses de Carvalho, G.L. Ljungquist, S. Pavinato, A. Petrushenko
    ESS, Lund, Sweden
 
  The European Spallation Source, ESS, is a source of spallation neutrons used for neutron scattering experiments, complementary to synchrotron light sources. ESS has very ambitious goals and experimentation with neutrons at ESS should be one or two orders of magnitude more performing compared to other sources. Each proton beam pulse generated by the linear accelerator will have a peak power of 125 MW. The machine’s equipment must be protected from damage due to beam losses, as such losses could lead to melting of e.g. the beam pipe within less than 5 microseconds. System-of-Systems engineering has been applied to deploy systematic and robust protection of the ESS machine. The ESS Machine Protection System of Systems (MP-SoS) consists of large-scale distributed systems, of which the components themselves are complex systems. Testing, verification and validation of the MP-SoS is rather challenging as each constituent system of the MP-SoS has its own management, functionality that is not necessarily designed for protection, and also the different system owners follow their own verification strategies. In this paper, we will present our experience gained through the first 3 beam commissioning phases, ESS has gone through so far. We will describe how we managed to declare MP-SoS to being ready for beam operation without complexifying the task, and we will present the challenges, issues, and lessons learned faced during the verification and validation campaigns.  
slides icon Slides TU2BCO06 [1.930 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TU2BCO06  
About • Received ※ 31 October 2023 — Revised ※ 03 November 2023 — Accepted ※ 12 December 2023 — Issued ※ 20 December 2023
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TUMBCMO01 Extending the Coverage of Automated Testing in ITER’s Control System Software Distribution software, controls, framework, PLC 338
 
  • R. Lange, H. Kim, A. Žagar
    ITER Organization, St. Paul lez Durance, France
  • V. Costa, J. Nieto, M. Ruiz
    UPM-I2A2, Madrid, Spain
 
  Funding: Partially funded by PID2019-108377RB-C33/MCIN/AEI (Agencia Estatal de Investigación) /10.13039/501100011033 and PID2022-137680OB-C33/MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033 / FEDER/ and the European Union.
As part of the effort to standardize the control system environment of ITER’s in-kind delivered >170 plant systems, the Controls Division publishes CODAC Core System (CCS), a complete Linux-based control system software distribution. In the past, a large part of the integrated and end-to-end software testing for CCS was executed manually, using many long and complex test plan documents. As the project progress introduces increasing scope and higher quality requirements, that approach was not maintainable in the long term. ITER CODAC and its partners have started a multi-year effort converting manual tests to automated tests, inside the so-called Framework for Integration Testing (FIT), which itself is being developed and gradually extended as part of the effort. This software framework is complemented by a dedicated hardware test stand setup, comprising specimens of the different controllers and I/O hardware supported by CCS. FIT and the test stand will allow to run fully scripted hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests and allow functional verification of specific software modules as well as different end-to-end use cases.
 
slides icon Slides TUMBCMO01 [1.306 MB]  
poster icon Poster TUMBCMO01 [10.356 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO01  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 28 November 2023 — Issued ※ 09 December 2023
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TUMBCMO20 Introduction and Status of Fermilab’s ACORN Project controls, operation, power-supply, software 401
 
  • D. Finstrom, E.G. Gottschalk
    Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois, USA
 
  Modernizing the Fermilab accelerator control system is essential to future operations of the laboratory’s accelerator complex. The existing control system has evolved over four decades and uses hardware that is no longer available and software that uses obsolete frameworks. The Accelerator Controls Operations Research Network (ACORN) Project will modernize the control system and replace end-of-life power supplies to enable future accelerator complex operations with megawatt particle beams. An overview of the ACORN Project will be presented along with a summary of recent R&D activities.  
slides icon Slides TUMBCMO20 [0.581 MB]  
poster icon Poster TUMBCMO20 [0.455 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO20  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 06 December 2023 — Issued ※ 13 December 2023
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TUPDP013 Status on Continuous Scans at BESSY II controls, undulator, software, interface 513
 
  • N. Greve, M. Brendike, D.K. Kraft, M. Neu, G. Pfeiffer
    HZB, Berlin, Germany
 
  Continuous energy scanning is an important feature for many beamlines at BESSY II. In 2015 this method was used at 11 Undulator and 6 dipol beamlines.[1] Since then the demand for this feature - especially among new build beamlines - increased, while the availability of the used hardware decreased. In order to tackle this problem, we investigate into alternative solutions for both, hardware and software. By introducing an independent high level controller between the two device controllers, we can compensate for communication incompatibilities and hence increase flexibility. This paper shows the status of our research. The ideas leading to a first prototype, the prototype itself and first results will be presented.
[1] A. F. Balzer et al., Status of the Continuous Mode Scan for Undulator Beamlines at BESSY II ,doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2015-THHA3O02
 
poster icon Poster TUPDP013 [0.855 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP013  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 06 December 2023 — Issued ※ 10 December 2023  
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TUPDP025 Board Bring-up with FPGA Framework and ChimeraTK on Yocto controls, software, embedded, Linux 557
 
  • J. Georg, A.W.C. Barker, L. Butkowski, M. Hierholzer, M. Killenberg, T. Kozak, N. Omidsajedi, M. Randall, D. Rothe, N. Shehzad, C. Willner
    DESY, Hamburg, Germany
  • K. Zenker
    HZDR, Dresden, Germany
 
  This presentation will showcase our experience in board bring-up using our FPGA Framework and ChimeraTK, our C++ hardware abstraction library. The challenges involved in working with different FPGA vendors will be discussed, as well as how the framework and library help to abstract vendor-specific details to provide a consistent interface for applications. Our approach to integrating this framework and libraries with Yocto, a popular open-source project for building custom Linux distributions, will be discussed. We will show how we leverage Yocto’s flexibility and extensibility to create a customized Linux image that includes our FPGA drivers and tools, and discuss the benefits of this approach for embedded development. Finally, we will share some of our best practices for board bring-up using our framework and library, including tips for debugging and testing. Our experience with FPGA-based board bring-up using ChimeraTK and Yocto should be valuable to anyone interested in developing embedded systems with FPGA technology  
poster icon Poster TUPDP025 [0.567 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP025  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 11 December 2023 — Issued ※ 15 December 2023  
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TUPDP041 Safety System Final Design for the ITER Heating Neutral Beam Injector Test Bed software, SCADA, PLC, neutral-beams 602
 
  • A.F. Luchetta, M. Battistella, S. Dal Bello, L. Grando, M.M. Moressa
    Consorzio RFX, Padova, Italy
  • J.M. Arias
    ITER Organization, St. Paul lez Durance, France
  • C. Labate, F. Paolucci
    F4E, Barcelona, Spain
 
  Funding: This work has been carried out within the ITER-RFX Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) Agreement and Fusion for Energy F4E-OFC-280 contract.
MITICA, the prototype of the ITER heating neutral beam injector, will use an extensive computer-based safety system (MS) to provide occupational safety. The MS will integrate all personnel safety aspects. After a detailed risk analysis to identify the possible hazards and associated risks, we determined the safety instrumented functions (SIFs), needed to mitigate safety risks, and the associated Safety Integrity Levels (SIL), as prescribed in the IEC 61508 technical standard on functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems. Finally, we verified the SIFs versus the required SIL. We identified 53 SIFs, 3 of which allocated to SIL2, 23 to SIL1, and the others without SIL. Based on the system analysis, we defined the MS architecture, also considering the following design criteria: - Using IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 (Safety instrumented systems for the process industry) as guidelines; - Using system hardware to allow up to SIL3 SIFs; - Using certified software tools to allow programming up to SIL3 SIFs. The SIL3 requirement derives from the need to minimize the share of the hw/sw failure probability, thus allowing maximum share to sensors and actuators. The paper presents the requirements for the MITICA safety systems and the system design to meet them. Due to the required system reliability and availability, the hardware architecture is fully redundant. Given the requirement to choose proven solutions, the system implementation adopts industrial components.
 
poster icon Poster TUPDP041 [2.498 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP041  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 08 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 22 December 2023
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TUPDP073 CAN Monitoring Software for an Antenna Positioner Emulator software, controls, monitoring, network 673
 
  • V. van Tonder
    SARAO, Cape Town, South Africa
 
  Funding: South African Radio Astronomy Observatory
The original Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol, was developed for control and monitoring within vehicular systems. It has since been expanded and today, the Open CAN bus protocol is a leading protocol used within servo-control systems for telescope positioning systems. Development of a CAN bus monitoring component is currently underway. This component forms part of a greater software package, designed for an Antenna Positioner Emulator (APE), which is under construction. The APE will mimic movement of a MeerKAT antenna, in both the azimuth and elevation axes, as well as the positioning of the receiver indexer. It will be fitted with the same servo-drives and controller hardware as MeerKAT, however there will be no main dish, sub-reflector, or receiver. The APE monitoring software will receive data from a variety of communication protocols used by different devices within the MeerKAT control system, these include: CAN, Profibus, EnDAT, Resolver and Hiperface data. The monitoring software will run on a BeagleBone Black (BBB) fitted with an ARM processor. Local and remote logging capabilities are provided along with a user interface to initiate the reception of data. The CAN component makes use of the standard SocketCAN driver which is shipped as part of the linux kernel. Initial laboratory tests have been conducted using a CAN system bus adapter that transmits previously captured telescope data. The bespoke CAN receiver hardware connects in-line on the CAN bus and produces the data to a BBB, where the monitoring software logs the data.
 
poster icon Poster TUPDP073 [1.521 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP073  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 20 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 18 December 2023
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TUPDP076 Preliminary Design for the ALBA II Control System Stack controls, TANGO, GUI, software 685
 
  • S. Rubio-Manrique, F. Becheri, G. Cuní, R.H. Homs, Z. Reszela
    ALBA-CELLS, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
 
  One of the main pillars of the ALBA Synchrotron Light Source (Barcelona, Spain) Strategy Plan is the preparation of ALBA to be upgraded to a fourth-generation light source. To accomplish this, a preliminary design of the accelerator has already been initiated in 2021. On the Computing side, the upgrade of the accelerator will require a comprehensive overhaul of most parts of the Control System, DAQ, Timing, and many other systems as well as DevOps strategies. This need for a major redesign will bring new architectural challenges, and opportunities to benefit from new technologies that were not present at the time ALBA was designed and build. This paper presents the preliminary design studies, pilot projects, new approaches to development coordination and management, and the preparation plan to acquire the knowledge and experience needed to excel in the ALBA II Control System Stack design.  
poster icon Poster TUPDP076 [1.095 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP076  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 17 December 2023
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TUPDP077 Towards the ALBA II : the Computing Division Preliminary Study controls, operation, synchrotron, software 691
 
  • O. Matilla, J.A. Avila-Abellan, F. Becheri, S. Blanch-Torné, A.M. Burillo, A. Camps Gimenez, I. Costa, G. Cuní, T. Fernández Maltas, R.H. Homs, J. Moldes, E. Morales, C. Pascual-Izarra, S. Pusó Gallart, A. Pérez Font, Z. Reszela, B. Revuelta, A. Rubio, S. Rubio-Manrique, J. Salabert, N. Serra, X. Serra-Gallifa, N. Soler, S. Vicente Molina, J. Villanueva
    ALBA-CELLS, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
 
  The ALBA Synchrotron has started the work for up-grading the accelerator and beamlines towards a 4th gen-eration source, the future ALBA II, in 2030. A complete redesign of the magnets lattice and an upgrade of the beamlines will be required. But in addition, the success of the ALBA II project will depend on multiple factors. First, after thirteen years in operation, all the subsystems of the current accelerator must be revised. To guarantee their lifetime until 2060, all the possible ageing and obsoles-cence factors must be considered. Besides, many tech-nical enhancements have improved performance and reliability in recent years. Using the latest technologies will also avoid obsolescence in the medium term, both in the hardware and the software. Considering this, the pro-ject ALBA II Computing Preliminary Study (ALBA II CPS) was launched in mid-2021, identifying 11 work packages. In each one, a group of experts were selected to analyze the different challenges and needs in the compu-ting and electronics fields for future accelerator design: from power supplies technologies, IOC architectures, or PLC-based automation systems to synchronization needs, controls software stack, IT Systems infrastructure or ma-chine learning opportunities. Now, we have a clearer picture of what is required. Hence, we can build a realistic project plan to ensure the success of the ALBA II. It is time to get ALBA II off the ground.  
poster icon Poster TUPDP077 [0.687 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP077  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 11 December 2023 — Issued ※ 15 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TUPDP087 Enhancing Measurement Quality in HL-LHC Magnets Testing Using Software Techniques on Digital Multimeter Cards-Based System software, controls, operation, LabView 729
 
  • H. Reymond, O.O. Andreassen, M. Charrondiere, C. Charrondière, P.D. Jankowski
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  The HL-LHC magnets play a critical role in the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider project, which aims to increase the luminosity of the LHC and enable more precise studies of fundamental physics. Ensuring the performance and reliability of these magnets requires high-precision measurements of their electrical properties during testing. To meet the R&D program needs of the new superconducting magnet technology, an accurate and generic voltage measurement system was developed after the testing and validation campaign of the LHC magnets. The system was based on a set of digital multimeter (DMM) cards installed in a PXI modular chassis and controlled using CERN’s in-house software development. It allowed for the measurement of the electrical properties of the magnet prototypes during their study phase. However, during the renovation of the magnet test benches and in preparation for the HL-LHC magnet series measurement, some limitations and instabilities were discovered during long recording measurements. As a result, it was decided to redesign the measurement system. The emergence and promises of the new PXIe platform, along with the requirement to build eight new systems to be operated similarly to the existing four, led to a complete redesign of the software. This article describes the various software techniques employed to address platform compatibility issues and significantly improve measurement accuracy, thus ensuring the reliability and quality of the data obtained from the HL-LHC magnet tests.  
poster icon Poster TUPDP087 [6.660 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP087  
About • Received ※ 02 October 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 12 October 2023 — Issued ※ 13 October 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TUPDP092 Life Cycle Management and Reliability Analysis of Controls Hardware Using Operational Data From EAM operation, controls, electron, status 758
 
  • E. Fortescue, I. Kozsar, V. Schramm
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  The use of operational data from Enterprise Asset Management(EAM) systems has become an increasingly popular approach for conducting reliability analysis of industrial equipment. This paper presents a case study of how EAM data was used to analyse the reliability of CERN’s standard controls hardware, deployed and maintained by the Controls Electronics and Mechatronics group. The first part of the study involved the extraction, treatment and analysis of state-transition data to detect failures. The analysis was conducted using statistical methods, including failure-rate analysis and time-to-failure analysis to identify trends in equipment performance and plan for future obsolescence, upgrades and replacement strategies. The results of the analysis are available via a dynamic online dashboard. The second part of the study considers Front-End computers as repairable systems, composed of the previously studied non-repairable modules. The faults were recorded and analysed using the Accelerator Fault Tracking system. The study brought to light the need for high quality data, which led to improvements in the data recording process and refinement of the infrastructure team’s workflow. In the future, reliability analysis will become even more critical for ensuring the cost-effective and efficient operation of controls systems for accelerators. This study demonstrates the potential of EAM operational data to provide valuable insights into equipment reliability and inform decision-making for repairable and non-repairable systems.  
poster icon Poster TUPDP092 [40.179 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP092  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 05 December 2023 — Issued ※ 12 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TUPDP109 Tickit: An Event-Based Multi-Device Simulation Framework simulation, framework, controls, EPICS 823
 
  • A. Emery, T.M. Cobb, C.A. Forrester, G. O’Donnell
    DLS, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
 
  Tickit is an event-based multi-device simulation framework providing configuration and orchestration of complex simulations. It was developed at Diamond Light Source in order to overcome limitations presented to us by some of our existing hardware simulations. With the Tickit framework, simulations can be addressed with a compositional approach. It allows devices to be simulated individually while still maintaining the interconnected behaviour exhibited by their hardware counterparts. This is achieved by modelling the interactions between devices, such as electronic signals. Devices can be collated into larger simulated systems providing a layer of simulated hardware against which to test the full stack of Data Acquisition and Controls tools. We aim to use this framework to extend the scope and improve the interoperability of our simulations; enabling us to further improve the testing of current systems and providing a preferential platform to assist in development of the new Acquisition and Controls tools.  
poster icon Poster TUPDP109 [0.703 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP109  
About • Received ※ 29 September 2023 — Revised ※ 21 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 04 December 2023 — Issued ※ 18 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TUPDP121 Conceptual Design of the Matter in Extreme Conditions Upgrade (MEC-U) Rep-Rated Laser Control System controls, laser, timing, EPICS 865
 
  • B.T. Fishler, F. Batysta, J. Galbraith, V.K. Gopalan, J. Jimenez, L.S. Kiani, E.S. Koh, J.F. McCarrick, A.K. Patel, R.E. Plummer, B. Reagan, E. Sistrunk, T.M. Spinka, K. Terzi, K.M. Velas
    LLNL, Livermore, California, USA
  • M.Y. Cabral, T.A. Wallace, J. Yin
    SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
 
  Funding: This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is delivering the Dual-mode Energetic Laser for Plasma and High Intensity Science (DELPHI) system to SLAC as part of the MEC-U project to create an unprecedented platform for high energy density experiments. The DELPHI control system is required to deliver short and/or long pulses at a 10 Hz firing rate with femto/pico-second accuracy sustained over fourteen 12-hour operator shifts to a common shared target chamber. The MEC-U system requires the integration of the control system with SLAC provided controls related to personnel safety, machine safety, precision timing, data analysis and visualization, amongst others. To meet these needs along with the system’s reliability, availability, and maintainability requirements, LLNL is delivering an EPICS based control system leveraging proven SLAC technology. This talk presents the conceptual design of the DELPHI control system and the methods planned to ensure its successful commissioning and delivery to SLAC.
 
poster icon Poster TUPDP121 [1.610 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP121  
About • Received ※ 02 October 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 04 December 2023 — Issued ※ 17 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TUSDSC03 Integrating Tools to Aid the Automation of PLC Development Within the TwinCat Environment interface, PLC, FEL, controls 925
 
  • N. Mashayekh, B. Baranasic, M. Bueno, L. Feltrin Zanellatto, T. Freyermuth, P. Gessler, S.T. Huynh, N. Jardón Bueno, J. Tolkiehn
    EuXFEL, Schenefeld, Germany
 
  Within the myriad of day to day activities, a consistent and standardised code base can be hard to achieve, especially when a diverse array of developers across different fields are involved. By creating tools and wizards, it becomes possible to guide the developer and/or user through many of the development and generic tasks associated with a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). At the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser Facility (EuXFEL), we have striven to achieve structure and consistency within the PLC framework through the use of C# tools which are embedded into the TwinCAT environment (Visual Studio) as extensions. These tools aid PLC development and deployment, and provide a clean and consistent way to develop, configure and integrate code from the hardware level, to the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.  
poster icon Poster TUSDSC03 [0.137 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUSDSC03  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 29 November 2023 — Issued ※ 12 December 2023  
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
WE1BCO01 VME2E: VME to Ethernet - Common Hardware Platform for legacy VME Module Upgrade FPGA, Ethernet, controls, real-time 949
 
  • J.P. Jamilkowski
    Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Electron-Ion Collider, Upton, New York, USA
  • Y. Tian
    BNL, Upton, New York, USA
 
  Funding: DOE Office of Science
VME architecture was developed in late 1970s. It has proved to be a rugged control system hardware platform for the last four decades. Today the VME hardware platform is facing four challenges from 1) backplane communication speed bottleneck; 2) computing power limits from centralized computing infrastructure; 3) obsolescence and cost issues to support a real-time operating system; 4) obsolescence issues of the legacy VME hardware. The next generation hardware platform such as ATCA and microTCA requires fundamental changes in hardware and software. It also needs large investment. For many legacy system upgrades, this approach is not applicable. We will discuss an open-source hardware platform, VME2E (VME to Ethernet), which allows the one-to-one replacement of legacy VME module without disassembling of the existing VME system. The VME2E has the VME form factor. It can be installed the existing VME chassis, but without use the VME backplane to communicate with the front-end computer and therefore solves the first three challenges listed above. The VME2E will only take advantage of two good benefits from a VME system: stable power supply which VME2E module will get from the backplane, and the cooling environment. The VME2E will have the most advanced 14nm Xilinx FPGA SOM with GigE for parallel computing and high speed communication. It has a high pin count (HPC) FPGA mezzanine connector (FMC) to benefit the IO daughter boards supply of the FMC ecosystem. The VME2E is designed as a low cost, open-source common platform for legacy VME upgrade.
 
slides icon Slides WE1BCO01 [1.141 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-WE1BCO01  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 19 November 2023 — Issued ※ 22 November 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
WE1BCO02 Data Management Infrastructure for European XFEL experiment, FEL, data-management, network 952
 
  • J. Malka, S. Aplin, D. Boukhelef, K. Filippakopoulos, L.G. Maia, T. Piszczek, Mr. Previtali, J. Szuba, K. Wrona
    EuXFEL, Schenefeld, Germany
  • S. Dietrich, MA. Gasthuber, J. Hannappel, M. Karimi, Y. Kemp, R. Lueken, T. Mkrtchyan, K. Ohrenberg, F. Schlünzen, P. Suchowski, C. Voss
    DESY, Hamburg, Germany
 
  Effective data management is crucial to ensure research data is easily accessible and usable. We will present design and implementation of the European XFEL data management infrastructure supporting high level data management services. The system architecture comprises four layers of storage systems, each designed to address specific challenges. The first layer, referred to as online, is designed as a fast cache to accommodate extreme high rates (up to 15GB/s) of data generated during experiment at single scientific instrument. The second layer, called high-performance storage, provides necessary capabilities for data processing both during and after experiments. The layers are incorporated into a single infiniband fabric and connected through a 4km long 1Tb/s link. This allows fast data transfer from the European XFEL experiment hall to the DESY computing center. The third layer, mass-storage, extends the capacity of data storage system to allow mid-term data access for detailed analysis. Finally, the tape archive, provides data safety and long-term archive (5-10years). The high performance and mass storage systems are connected to computing clusters. This allows users to perform near-online and offline data analysis or alternatively export data outside of the European XFEL facility. The data management infrastructure at the European XFEL has the capacity to accept and process up to 2PB of data per day, which demonstrates the remarkable capabilities of all the sub-services involved in this process.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-WE1BCO02  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 23 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 12 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
WE2BCO03 Ongoing Improvements to the Instrumentation and Control System at LANSCE controls, software, operation, network 979
 
  • M. Pieck, C.D. Hatch, H.A. Watkins, E.E. Westbrook
    LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
 
  Funding: This work was supported by the U.S. DOE through the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). LANL is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the NNSA of U.S. DOE - Contract No. 89233218CNA000001
Recent upgrades to the Instrumentation and Control System at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) have significantly improved its maintainability and performance. These changes were the first strategic steps towards a larger vision to standardize the hardware form factors and software methodologies. Upgrade efforts are being prioritized though a risk-based approach and funded at various levels. With a major recapitalization project finished in 2022 and modernization project scheduled to start possibly in 2025, current efforts focus on the continuation of upgrade efforts that started in the former and will be finished in the later time frame. Planning and executing these upgrades are challenging considering that some of the changes are architectural in nature, however, the functionality needs to be preserved while taking advantage of technology progressions. This is compounded by the fact that those upgrades can only be implemented during the annual 4-month outage. This paper will provide an overview of our vision, strategy, challenges, recent accomplishments, as well as future planned activities to transform our 50-year-old control system into a modern state-of-the-art design.
LA-UR-23-24389
 
slides icon Slides WE2BCO03 [9.626 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-WE2BCO03  
About • Received ※ 30 September 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 19 November 2023 — Issued ※ 03 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
WE2BCO04 Maintaining a Hybrid Control System at ISIS with a Vsystem/EPICS Bridge EPICS, controls, software, target 986
 
  • K.R.L. Baker, I.D. Finch, M. Romanovschi
    STFC/RAL/ISIS, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, United Kingdom
 
  The migration of the controls system for the ISIS accelerator from Vsystem to EPICS presents a significant challenge and risk to day-to-day operations. To minimise this impact throughout the transition, a software bridge between the two control systems has been developed that allows the phased porting of HMIs and hardware. The hybrid Vsystem and EPICS system also allows the continued use of existing feedback control applications that now require interaction between both control systems, for example the halo steering operation in Target Station 1. This work describes the implementation of this bridge, referred to as PVEcho, for the mapping of Vsystem channels to EPICS PVs and vice versa. The position within the wider ISIS controls software stack is outlined as well as how it utilises Python libraries for EPICS. Finally, we will discuss the software development practices applied that have allowed the bridge to run reliably for months at a time.  
slides icon Slides WE2BCO04 [2.757 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-WE2BCO04  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 11 December 2023  
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
WE3AO06 Deployment and Operation of the Remotely Operated Accelerator Monitor (ROAM) Robot controls, software, radiation, network 1077
 
  • T.C. Thayer, N. Balakrishnan, M.A. Montironi, A. Ratti
    SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
 
  Funding: Work supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC02-76SF00515.
Monitoring the harsh environment within an operating accelerator is a notoriously challenging problem. High radiation, lack of space, poor network connectivity, or extreme temperatures are just some of the challenges that often make ad-hoc, fixed sensor networks the only viable option. In an attempt to increase the flexibility of deploying different types of sensors on an as-needed basis, we have built upon the existing body of work in the field and developed a robotic platform to be used as a mobile sensor platform. The robot is constructed with the objective of minimizing costs and development time, strongly leveraging the use of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware and open-source software (ROS). Although designed to be remotely operated by a user, the robot control system incorporates sensors and algorithms for autonomous obstacle detection and avoidance. We have deployed the robot to a number of missions within the SLAC LCLS accelerator complex with the double objective of collecting data to assist accelerator operations and of gaining experience on how to improve the robustness and reliability of the platform. In this work we describe our deployment scenarios, challenges encountered, solutions implemented and future improvement plans.
 
slides icon Slides WE3AO06 [4.578 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-WE3AO06  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 16 December 2023  
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TH2AO04 Developing Modern High-Level Controls APIs controls, software, operation, MMI 1145
 
  • B. Urbaniec, L. Burdzanowski, S.G. Gennaro
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  The CERN Accelerator Controls are comprised of various high-level services that work together to provide a highly available, robust, and versatile means of controlling the Accelerator Complex. Each service includes an API (Application Programming Interface) which is used both for service-to-service interactions, as well as by end-user applications. These APIs need to support interactions from heterogeneous clients using a variety of programming languages including Java, Python, C++, or direct HTTP/REST calls. This presents several technical challenges, including aspects such as reliability, availability and scalability. API usability is another important factor with accents on ease of access and minimizing the exposure to Controls domain complexity. At the same time, there is the requirement to efficiently and safely cater for the inevitable need to evolve the APIs over time. This paper describes concrete technical and design solutions addressing these challenges, based on experience gathered over numerous years. To further support this, the paper presents examples of real-life telemetry data focused on latency and throughput, along with the corresponding analysis. The paper also describes on-going and future API development.  
slides icon Slides TH2AO04 [2.676 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TH2AO04  
About • Received ※ 03 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 17 December 2023 — Issued ※ 18 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TH2BCO02 Open Source EtherCAT Motion Control Rollout for Motion Applications at SLS-2.0 Beamlines controls, PLC, EPICS, framework 1166
 
  • A.S. Acerbo, T. Celcer, A. Sandström
    PSI, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
 
  The SLS-2.0 upgrade project comprises of a new storage ring and magnet lattice and will result in improved emittance and brightness by two orders of magnitude. Paired with these upgrades is a generational upgrade of the motion control system, away from VME based hardware and towards a more modern framework. For SLS-2.0 beamlines, the EtherCAT Motion Control (ECMC) open source framework has been chosen as the de-facto beamline motion control system for simple motion, analog/digital input/output and simple data collection. The ECMC framework comprises of a feature rich implementation of the EtherCAT protocol and supports a broad range of Beckhoff hardware, with the ability to add further EtherCAT devices. ECMC provides soft PLC functionality supported by the C++ Mathematical Expression Toolkit Library (ExprTk), which runs at a fixed frequency on the EtherCAT master at a rate up to the EtherCAT frame rate. This PLC approach allows for implementing complex motion, such as forward and backward kinematics of multi-positioner systems, i.e. roll, yaw, and pitch in a 5-axis mirror system. Additional logic can be loaded in the form of plugins written in C. Further work is ongoing to provide flexible Position Compare functionality at a frequency of 1 kHz coupled with event triggering as a way to provide a basic fly-scan functionality for medium performance applications with the use of standardized SLS-2.0 beamline hardware. We provide an overview of these and related ECMC activities currently ongoing for the SLS-2.0 project.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TH2BCO02  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 12 December 2023  
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TH2BCO04 SAMbuCa: Sensors Acquisition and Motion Control Framework at CERN controls, framework, operation, interface 1179
 
  • A. Masi, O.O. Andreassen, M. Arruat, M. Di Castro, R. Ferraro, I. Kozsar, E.W. Matheson, J.P. Palluel, P. Peronnard, J. Serrano, J. Tagg, F. Vaga, E. Van der Bij
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
  • S. Danzeca, M. Donzé, S.F. Fargier, M. Gulin, E. Soria
    European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland
 
  Motion control systems at CERN often have challenging requirements, such as high precision in extremely radioactive environments with millisecond synchronization. These demanding specifications are particularly relevant for Beam Intercepting Devices (BIDs) such as the collimators of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Control electronics must be installed in safe areas, hundreds of meters away from the sensors and actuators while conventional industrial systems only work with cable lengths up to a few tens of meters. To address this, several years of R&D have been committed to developing a high precision motion control system. This has resulted in specialized radiation-hard actuators, new sensors, novel algorithms and actuator control solutions capable of operating in this challenging environment. The current LHC Collimator installation is based on off-the-shelf components from National Instruments. During the Long Shutdown 3 (LS3 2026-2028), the existing systems will be replaced by a new high-performance Sensors Acquisition and Motion Control system (SAMbuCa). SAMbuCa represents a complete, in-house developed, flexible and modular solution, able to cope with the demanding requirements of motion control at CERN, and incorporating the R&D achievements and operational experience of the last 15 years controlling more than 1200 axes at CERN. In this paper, the hardware and software architectures, their building blocks and design are described in detail.  
slides icon Slides TH2BCO04 [5.775 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TH2BCO04  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 19 December 2023 — Issued ※ 20 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
TH2BCO06 The SNS PLC Based Controls Solution for Stepper Motors controls, PLC, Ethernet, EPICS 1187
 
  • D.C. Williams, F.C. Medio
    ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
 
  Funding: SNS is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 for the U.S. Department of Energy
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been operating for over 15 years and many electronic components are now obsolete and require replacement to assure reliability and sustainability. SNS uses stepper motors to control accelerator components throughout the facility including the cryomodule tuners, beam scrapers, and the primary and secondary stripper foils. The original motor controls were implemented with VME controllers, custom power supplies, and various types of motor drivers. As these components became less reliable and obsolete a new control solution was needed that could be applied to multiple motion control systems. Fast performance requirements are not crucial for these stepper motors, so the PLC technology was selected. The first system replaced was the Ring stripper foil control system and plans are underway to replace the beam scrapers. This paper provides an overview of the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware used to control stepper motors at SNS. Details of the design and challenges to convert a control system during short maintenance periods without disrupting beam operation will be covered in this paper.
 
slides icon Slides TH2BCO06 [1.914 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TH2BCO06  
About • Received ※ 19 September 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 25 October 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
THMBCMO07 Reflective Servers: Seamless Offloading of Resource Intensive Data Delivery interface, controls, operation, software 1201
 
  • S.L. Clark, T. D’Ottavio, M. Harvey, J.P. Jamilkowski, J. Morris, S. Nemesure
    BNL, Upton, New York, USA
 
  Funding: Work supported by Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC under Contract No. DE-SC0012704 with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Collider-Accelerator Department houses over 550 Front-End Computers (FECs) of varying specifications and resource requirements. These FECs provide operations-critical functions to the complex, and uptime is a concern among the most resource constrained units. Asynchronous data delivery is widely used by applications to provide live feedback of current conditions but contributes significantly towards resource exhaustion of FECs. To provide a balance of performance and efficiency, the Reflective system has been developed to support unrestricted use of asynchronous data delivery with even the most resource constrained FECs in the complex. The Reflective system provides components which work in unison to offload responsibilities typically handled by core controls infrastructure to hosts with the resources necessary to handle heavier workloads. The Reflective system aims to be a drop-in component of the controls system, requiring few modifications and remaining completely transparent to users and applications alike.
 
slides icon Slides THMBCMO07 [0.963 MB]  
poster icon Poster THMBCMO07 [6.670 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO07  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 15 December 2023  
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
THMBCMO10 SECoP Integration for the Ophyd Hardware Abstraction Layer interface, controls, status, EPICS 1212
 
  • P. Wegmann, K. Kiefer, O. Mannix, L. Rossa, W. Smith
    HZB, Berlin, Germany
  • E. Faulhaber
    MLZ, Garching, Germany
  • M. Zolliker
    PSI, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
 
  At the core of the Bluesky experimental control ecosystem the ophyd hardware abstraction, a consistent high-level interface layer, is extremely powerful for complex device integration. It introduces the device data model to EPICS and eases integration of alien control protocols. This paper focuses on the integration of the Sample Environment Communication Protocol (SECoP)* into the ophyd layer, enabling seamless incorporation of sample environment hardware into beamline experiments at photon and neutron sources. The SECoP integration was designed to have a simple interface and provide plug-and-play functionality while preserving all metadata and structural information about the controlled hardware. Leveraging the self-describing characteristics of SECoP, automatic generation and configuration of ophyd devices is facilitated upon connecting to a Sample Environment Control (SEC) node. This work builds upon a modified SECoP-client provided by the Frappy framework**, intended for programming SEC nodes with a SECoP interface. This paper presents an overview of the architecture and implementation of the ophyd-SECoP integration and includes examples for better understanding.
*Klaus Kiefer et al. "An introduction to SECoP - the sample environment communication protocol".
**Markus Zolliker and Enrico Faulhaber url: https://github.com/sampleenvironment/Frappy.
 
slides icon Slides THMBCMO10 [0.596 MB]  
poster icon Poster THMBCMO10 [0.809 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO10  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 14 December 2023  
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
THMBCMO22 Towards Defining a Synchronization Standard Between Beamline Components and Synchrotron Accelerators experiment, interface, FPGA, synchrotron 1242
 
  • J.A. Avila-Abellan, X. Serra-Gallifa
    ALBA-CELLS, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
  • T.M. Cobb
    DLS, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
  • R. Hino
    ESRF, Grenoble, France
  • O.H. Seeck
    DESY, Hamburg, Germany
  • S. Zhang
    SOLEIL, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
 
  Funding: LEAPS-INNOV project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No 101004728
Standardization is a magic word in the electronics engineering jargon. Under its umbrella, it is generated the utopia of transparent integration with the rest of the parts with minimal extra effort for the software integration. But the experimental setup in a synchrotron beamline presents multiple challenges: it is highly dynamic and diverse. In the frame of LEAPS-INNOV project (*), the Task 3 of Work Package 5 aims to define a standard for synchronization in the beamline sample environment. Their partners (ALBA, DESY, DLS, ESRF and SOLEIL) have already reached a common vision of synchronization requirements. This paper first details the participants’ actual synchronization needs on their facilities. Next, the requirements foreseen for the future are outlined in terms of interfaces, time constraints and compatibility with timing systems. To conclude, we summarize the current state of the project: the hardware interfaces and the hardware platform definition. They both have been decided considering long-term availability, use of standard sub-components, and keeping the compromise between cost, development time, maintenance, reliability, flexibility and performance. This hardware architecture proposal meets the identified requirements. In the future, under the scope of LEAPS-INNOV, a demonstrator will be built, and we will work with the industry for its future commercialization.
 
slides icon Slides THMBCMO22 [1.592 MB]  
poster icon Poster THMBCMO22 [0.760 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO22  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 11 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023
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THMBCMO23 Development of a New Timing System for ISIS timing, target, controls, network 1247
 
  • R.A. Washington
    STFC/RAL/ISIS, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, United Kingdom
 
  The timing system at the ISIS Neutron and Muon source has been operating in its current iteration since 2008. Machine timing is handled by the Central Timing Distributor (CTD) which transmits various timing signals to ISIS accelerator equipment over RS-422 compliant timing buses. The nature of these timing signals has not changed since ISIS first delivered neutrons in 1984, and this paper will look at how an event-based timing system can be employed in the next generation of timing system for ISIS. A new timing system should allow for the distribution of events, triggers and timestamps, provide an increase in timing resolution and be fully backwards compatible with the current timing frame. The new Digitised Waveform System (DWS) at ISIS supports White Rabbit (WR). There is an available WR network which can be used to investigate a new timing system based on WR technology. Conclusions will be drawn from installing this new system in parallel with the current timing system; a comparison between the systems, alternatives, and next steps will be discussed.  
slides icon Slides THMBCMO23 [0.798 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO23  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 17 December 2023
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THMBCMO24 Time Synchronization and Timestamping for the ESS Neutron Instruments neutron, detector, controls, timing 1250
 
  • N. Holmberg, T. Brys, T. Bögershausen, M. Olsson, J.E. Petersson, A. Pettersson, T.S. Richter, F. Rojas
    ESS, Lund, Sweden
 
  Funding: Tillväxtverket (Sweden) & European Union
The European Spallation Source (ESS) will be a cutting-edge research facility that uses neutrons to study the properties of materials. This paper presents the timestamping strategy employed in the neutron instruments of the ESS, to enable efficient data correlation across subsystems and between different sources of experiment data. ESS uses absolute timestamps for all data and a global source clock to synchronize and timestamp data at the lowest appropriate level from each subsystem. This way we control the impact of jitter, delays and latencies when transferring experiment data to the data storage. ESS utilizes three time synchronisation technologies. The Network Time Protocol (NTP) providing an expected accuracy of approximately 10 milliseconds, the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) delivering roughly 10 microsecond accuracy, and hardware timing using Microreseach Finland (MRF) Event Receivers (EVR) which can reach 10 nanoseconds of accuracy. Both NTP and PTP rely on network communication using common internet protocols, while the EVRs use physical input and output signals combined with timestamp latching in hardware. The selection of the timestamping technology for each device and subsystem is based on their timestamp accuracy requirements, available interfaces, and cost requirements. This paper describes the choice of method used for different device types, like neutron choppers, detectors or sample environment equipment and covers some details of the implementation and characterisation.
 
slides icon Slides THMBCMO24 [0.384 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO24  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 11 December 2023 — Issued ※ 13 December 2023  
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THMBCMO34 Ultra-High Throughput Automated Macromolecular Crystallography Data Collection Using the Bluesky Framework experiment, software, controls, data-acquisition 1280
 
  • D.P. Perl, N. Frisina, D.E. Oram, N.P. Paterson
    DLS, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
 
  At Diamond Light Source, several Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) beamlines focus on, or include, completely automated data collection. This is used primarily for high throughput collection on samples with known or partially known structures, for example, screening a protein for drug or drug fragment interactions. The automated data collection routines are currently built on legacy experiment orchestration software which includes a lot of redundancy originally implemented for safety when human users are controlling the beamline, but which is inefficient when the beamline hardware occupies a smaller number of known states. Diamond is building its next generation, service-based, Data Acquisition Platform, Athena, using NSLSII’s Bluesky experiment orchestration library. The Bluesky library facilitates optimising the orchestration of experiment control by simplifying the work necessary to parallelise and reorganise the steps of an experimental procedure. The MX data acquisition team at Diamond is using the Athena platform to increase the possible rate of automated MX data collection both for immediate use and in preparation to take advantage of the upgraded Diamond-II synchrotron, due in several years. This project, named Hyperion, will include sample orientation and centring, fluorescence scanning, optical monitoring, collection strategy determination, and rotation data collection at multiple positions on a single sample pin.  
slides icon Slides THMBCMO34 [1.002 MB]  
poster icon Poster THMBCMO34 [3.445 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO34  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023
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THMBCMO35 Piezo Motor Based Hardware Triggered Nano Focus Caustic Acquisition controls, detector, alignment, software 1285
 
  • L.B.C. Campoi, G.S.R. Costa, N. Lopes Archilha, G.B.Z.L. Moreno, L.E.P. Vecina
    LNLS, Campinas, Brazil
 
  The evaluation of the focus produced by a KB (Kirkpatrick-Baez) mirror system is a challenging endeavor. In MOGNO (Micro and nano tomography) beamline’s case at Sirius, the KB was designed to produce a focus of 150x150 nm2, requiring a setup to evaluate the mirrors’ alignment in a timely manner. The developed diagnostic system is comprised of a stack of three linear inertia drive piezo stages and a fluorescence detector, acquiring data via hardware-triggered mesh scans. In the piezo stack, the stages are mounted along the X (horizontal, perpendicular to the beam path), Z (along the beam path) and YZ beamline directions. Moreover, the fact that a stage is placed at an angle requires the use of a kinematic transformation when scaning the focus along the Y axis, while the X axis scan can be done with a pure motion. The mesh scan can be diveded in two parts: hardware triggered line scan acquisition along X or Y and software triggered steps along Z between scans. In this manner, the control is done via a collection of low-level controller macros and Python scripts, such that during the scans, the piezo controllers communicate with each other and the detector via digital pulses, orchestrated by the in-house TATU (Timing and Trigger Unit) software*, reducing dead time between acquisition points. The proposed system proved to be reliable to acquire beam profiles, providing caustics in both horizontal and vertical directions. Currently, the acquired focus caustics indicate that the main source has a size of approximately 480x500 nm2.
* TATU: A Flexible FPGA-Based Trigger and Timer Unit Created on CompactRIO for the First Sirius Beamlines ISBN 978-3-95450-221-9 ISSN 2226-0358 URL https://jacow.org/icalepcs2021/papers/thpv021.pdf
 
slides icon Slides THMBCMO35 [1.608 MB]  
poster icon Poster THMBCMO35 [1.666 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO35  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 25 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 20 December 2023
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THPDP013 EPICS Integration for Rapid Control Prototyping Hardware from Speedgoat EPICS, controls, real-time, interface 1317
 
  • L. Rossa, M. Brendike
    HZB, Berlin, Germany
 
  To exploit the full potential of fourth generation Synchrotron Sources, new beamline instrumentation is increasingly developed with a mechatronics approach. [*,**,***] Implementing this approach raises the need for Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) and Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulations. To integrate such RCP and HIL systems into every-day beamline operation we developed an interface from a Speedgoat real-time performance machine - programmable via MATLAB Simulink - to EPICS. The interface was developed to be simple to use and still flexible. The Simulink software developer uses dedicated Simulink-blocks to export model information and real-time data into structured UDP Ethernet frames. The corresponding EPICS IOC listens to the UDP frames and auto-generates a corresponding database file to fit the data-stream from the Simulink model. The EPICS IOC can run on either a beamline measurement PC or to keep things spatially close on a mini PC (such as a Raspberry Pi) attached to the Speedgoat machine. An overview of the interface idea, architecture and implementation, together with some simple examples will be presented.
* https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-MEDSI2016-MOPE19
** https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2019-TUCPL05
*** https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/262789/1/TUIO02.pdf
 
poster icon Poster THPDP013 [1.143 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP013  
About • Received ※ 29 September 2023 — Revised ※ 25 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 18 December 2023
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THPDP016 Full Stack Performance Optimizations for FAIR Operation controls, operation, timing, storage-ring 1325
 
  • A. Schaller, H.C. Hüther, R. Mueller, A. Walter
    GSI, Darmstadt, Germany
 
  In the last beam times, operations reported a lack of performance and long waiting times when performing simple changes of the machines’ settings. To ensure performant operation of the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), the "Task Force Performance" (TFP) was formed in mid-2020, which aimed at optimizing all involved Control System components. Baseline measurements were recorded for different scenarios to compare and evaluate the steps taken by the TFP. These measurements contained data from all underlying systems, from hardware device data supply over network traffic up to user interface applications. Individual groups searched, detected and fixed performance bottlenecks in their components of the Control System stack, and the interfaces between these individual components were inspected as well. The findings are presented here.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP016  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 29 November 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 20 December 2023
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THPDP018 The Timing System for PETRA IV timing, controls, software, interface 1335
 
  • T. Wilksen, V. Andrei, K. Brede, H.T. Duhme, M. Fenner, U. Hurdelbrink, J.M. Jäger, H. Kay, H. Lippek, F. Ludwig, M. Pawelzik, S. Ruzin, H. Schlarb
    DESY, Hamburg, Germany
 
  At DESY, the PETRA III synchrotron light source upgrade towards a fourth-generation, low-emittance machine PETRA IV is being pursued. The realisation of the new machine requires a complete redesign of the timing system, as the beam quality and beam control requirements will change significantly. The new timing system must generate and distribute facility-wide precise clocks, trigger signals, trigger events and beam-synchronous information. The design of the main hardware components will be based on the MTCA.4 standard, which has become a well-established platform at DESY and successfully been in use with DESY FEL’s MTCA.4-based timing systems for almost a decade now. This paper presents and discusses the PETRA IV timing system overall concept and functionality and its hardware components development status.  
poster icon Poster THPDP018 [1.259 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP018  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 16 October 2023 — Issued ※ 26 October 2023
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THPDP020 Management of EPICS IOCs in a Distributed Network Environment Using Salt EPICS, controls, monitoring, network 1340
 
  • E. Blomley, J. Gethmann, A.-S. Müller, M. Schuh
    KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany
  • S. Marsching
    Aquenos GmbH, Baden-Baden, Germany
 
  An EPICS-based control system typically consists of many individual IOCs, which can be distributed across many computers in a network. Managing hundreds of deployed IOCs, keeping track of where they are running, and providing operators with basic interaction capabilities can easily become a maintenance nightmare. At the Institute for Beam Physics and Technology (IBPT) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), we operate separate networks for our accelerators KARA and FLUTE and use the Salt Project to manage the IT infrastructure. Custom Salt states take care of deploying our IOCs across multiple servers directly from the code repositories, integrating them into the host operating system and monitoring infrastructure. In addition, this allows the integration into our GUI in order to enable operators to monitor and control the process for each IOC without requiring any specific knowledge of where and how that IOC is deployed. Therefore, we can maintain and scale to any number of IOCs on any numbers of hosts nearly effortless. This paper presents the design of this system, discusses the tools and overall setup required to make it work, and shows off the integration into our GUI and monitoring systems.  
poster icon Poster THPDP020 [0.431 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP020  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 10 December 2023 — Issued ※ 14 December 2023  
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THPDP021 Equipment Life-Cycle Management at EuXFEL FEL, controls, electron, software 1346
 
  • N. Coppola, B.J. Fernandes, P. Gessler, S. Hauf, S.T. Huynh, N. Jardón Bueno, M. Manetti
    EuXFEL, Schenefeld, Germany
 
  Scientific instruments at the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser Facility (EuXFEL) comprises of a large variety of equipment, ranging from controllers, motors and encoders to valves. It is a false assumption that once a specific equipment had been procured and integrated, that no further attention is required. Reality is much more complex and incorporates various stages across the entire equipment life-cycle. This starts from the initial selection, standardization of the equipment, procurement, integration, tracking, spare part management, maintenance, documentation of interventions and repair, replacement and lastly, decommissioning. All aspects of such a life-cycle management are crucial in order to ensure safe and reliable operation across the life time of the equipment, whether it be five years, twenty years, or longer. At EuXFEL, many aspects of the described life-cycle management are already carried out with dedicated tools. However some aspects rely on manual work, which requires significant effort and discipline. This contribution aims to provide an overview of the requirements, and the ongoing efforts to develop and establish a complete life-cycle management at the EuXFEL.  
poster icon Poster THPDP021 [0.222 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP021  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 25 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 17 December 2023
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THPDP024 Automatic Configuration of Motors at the European XFEL software, controls, FEL, PLC 1358
 
  • F. Sohn, W. Ehsan, G. Giovanetti, D. Goeries, I. Karpics, K. Sukharnikov
    EuXFEL, Schenefeld, Germany
 
  The European XFEL (EuXFEL) scientific facility relies heavily on the SCADA control system Karabo* to configure and control a plethora of hardware devices. In this contribution a software solution for automatic configuration of collections of like Karabo devices is presented. Parameter presets for the automatic configuration are stored in a central database. In particular, the tool is used in the configuration of collections of single-axis motors, which is a recurring task at EuXFEL. To facilitate flexible experimental setup, motors are moved within the EuXFEL and reused at various locations in the operation of scientific instruments. A set of parameters has to be configured for each motor controller, depending on the controller and actuator model attached to a given programmable logic controller terminal, and the location of the motor. Since manual configurations are time-consuming and error-prone for large numbers of devices, a database-driven configuration of motor parameters is desirable. The software tool allows to assign and apply stored preset configurations to individual motors. Differences between the online configurations of the motors and the stored configurations are highlighted. Moreover, the software includes a "locking" feature to prevent motor usage after unintentional reconfigurations, which could lead to hardware damage.
* Hauf, Steffen, et al. "The Karabo distributed control system." Journal of synchrotron radiation 26.5 (2019): 1448-1461.
 
poster icon Poster THPDP024 [0.549 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP024  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 25 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023
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THPDP030 ESS Drift Tube Linac Control System Commissioning: Results and Lessons Learned controls, DTL, EPICS, site 1377
 
  • M. Montis, L. Antoniazzi, A. Baldo, M.G. Giacchini
    INFN/LNL, Legnaro (PD), Italy
  • A. Rizzo
    ESS, Lund, Sweden
 
  European Spallation Source (ESS) will be a neutron source using proton beam Linac of expected 5MW beam power. Designed and implemented by INFN-LNL, the Drift Tube Linac (DTL) control system is based on EPICS framework as indicated by the Project Requirements. This document aims to describe the results of the first part of the control system commissioning stage in 2022, where INFN and ESS teams were involved in the final tests on site. This phase was the first step toward a complete de-ployment of the control system, where the installation was composed by three sequential stages, according to the apparatus commissioning schedule. In this scenario, the firsts Site Acceptance Test (SAT) and Site Integrated Test (SIT) were crucial, and their results were the mile-stones for the other stages: the lessons learned can be important to speed up the future integration, calibration, and tuning of such a complex control system.

 
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP030  
About • Received ※ 18 September 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 26 October 2023
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THPDP059 Towards Automatic Generation of Fail-Safe PLC Code Compliant with Functional Safety Standards PLC, MMI, controls, software 1449
 
  • A. Germinario, E. Blanco Viñuela, B. Fernández Adiego
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  In agreement with the IEC 61511 functional safety standard, fail-safe application programs should be written using a Limited Variability Language (LVL), that has a limited number of operations and data types, such as LD (Ladder Diagrams) or FBD (Function Block Diagrams) for safety PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) languages. The specification of safety instrumented systems, as part of the Safety Requirements Specification document, shall unambiguously define the logic of the program, creating a one-to-one relationship between code and specification. Hence, coding becomes a translation from a specification language to PLC code. This process is repetitive and error-prone when performed by a human. In this paper we describe the process of fully generating Siemens TIA portal LD programs for safety applications from a formal specification. The process starts by generating an intermediate model that represents a generic LD program based on a predefined meta-model. This intermediate model is then automatically translated into code. The idea can be expanded to other equivalent LVL languages from other PLC manufacturers. In addition, the intermediate model can be generated from different specification formalisms having the same level of expressiveness as the one presented in this paper: a Cause-Effect Matrix. Our medium-term vision is to automatically generate fail-safe programs from diverse formal specification methods and using different LVLs.  
poster icon Poster THPDP059 [1.935 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP059  
About • Received ※ 03 October 2023 — Revised ※ 26 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 09 December 2023
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THPDP063 The Embedded Monitoring Processor for High Luminosity LHC software, interface, controls, monitoring 1470
 
  • P. Moschovakos, V. Ryjov, S. Schlenker
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
  • D. Ecker
    Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
  • J.B. Olesen
    AU, Aarhus, Denmark
 
  The Embedded Monitoring Processor (EMP) is a versatile platform designed for High Luminosity LHC experiments, addressing the communication, processing, and monitoring needs of diverse applications in the ATLAS experiment, with a focus on supporting front-ends based on lpGBT (low power Giga-Bit Transceiver). Built around a commercial SoM, the EMP architecture emphasizes modularity, flexibility and the usage of standard interfaces, aiming to cover a wide range of applications and facilitating detector integrators to design and implement their specific solutions. The EMP software and firmware architecture comprises epos, the EMP operating system, quasar OPC UA servers, dedicated firmware IP cores and an ecosystem of different software libraries. This abstract outlines the software and firmware aspects of the EMP, detailing its integration with lpGBT optical interfaces, programmable logic development, and the role of the LpGbtSw library as a Hardware Abstraction Library for the LpGbt OPC UA server.  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP063  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 27 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 12 December 2023 — Issued ※ 12 December 2023
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THPDP064 Selecting a Linux Operating System for CERN Accelerator Controls controls, Linux, software, operation 1475
 
  • A. Radeva, J.M.E. Elyn, F. Locci, T. Oulevey, M. Vanden Eynden
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  Changing the operating system (OS) for large heterogeneous infrastructures in the research domain is complex. It requires great effort to prepare, migrate and validate the common generic components, followed by the specific corner cases. The trigger to change OS mainly comes from Industry and is based on multiple factors, such as OS end-of-life and the associated lack of security updates, as well as hardware end-of-life and incompatibilities between new hardware and old OS. At the time of writing, the CERN Accelerator Controls computing infrastructure consists of ~4000 heterogeneous systems (servers, consoles and front-ends) running CentOS 7. The effort to move to CentOS 7 was launched in 2014 and deployed operationally 2 years later. In 2022, a project was launched to select and prepare the next Linux OS for Controls servers and consoles. This paper describes the strategy behind the OS choice, and the challenges to be overcome in order to switch to it within the next 2 years, whilst respecting the operational accelerator schedule and factoring in the global hardware procurement delays. Details will be provided on the technical solutions implemented by the System Administration team to facilitate this process. In parallel, whilst embarking on moving away from running Controls services on dedicated bare metal platforms towards containerization and orchestration, an open question is whether the OS of choice, RHEL9, is the most suitable for the near future and if not what are the alternatives?  
poster icon Poster THPDP064 [9.129 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP064  
About • Received ※ 07 October 2023 — Revised ※ 27 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 02 December 2023 — Issued ※ 11 December 2023
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THPDP069 A Generic Real-Time Software in C++ for Digital Camera-Based Acquisition Systems at CERN software, operation, network, controls 1499
 
  • A. Topaloudis, E. Bravin, S. Burger, S. Jackson, S. Mazzoni, E. Poimenidou, E. Senes
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  Until recently, most of CERN’s beam visualisation systems have been based on increasingly obsolescent analogue cameras. Hence, there is an on-going campaign to replace old or install new digital equivalents. There are many challenges associated with providing a homogenised solution for the data acquisition of the various visualization systems in an accelerator complex as diverse as CERN’s. However, a generic real-time software in C++ has been developed and already installed in several locations to control such systems. This paper describes the software and the additional tools that have also been developed to exploit the acquisition systems, including a Graphical User Interface (GUI) in Java/Swing and web fixed displays. Furthermore, it analyses the specific challenges of each use-case and the chosen solutions that resolve issues including any subsequent performance limitations.  
poster icon Poster THPDP069 [1.787 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP069  
About • Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 18 December 2023  
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THPDP070 Building, Deploying and Provisioning Embedded Operating Systems at PSI Linux, network, controls, EPICS 1505
 
  • D. Anicic
    PSI, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
 
  In the scope of the Swiss Light Source (SLS) upgrade project, SLS 2.0, at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) two New Processing Platforms (NPP), both running RT Linux, have been added to the portfolio of existing VxWorks and Linux VME systems. At the lower end we have picked a variety of boards, all based on the Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC. Even though these devices have less processing power, due to the built-in FPGA and Real-time CPU (RPU) they can deliver strict, hard RT performance. For high-throughput, soft-RT applications we went for Intel Xeon based single-board PCs in the CPCI-S form factor. All platforms are operated as diskless systems. For the Zynq systems we have decided on building in-house a Yocto Kirkstone Linux distribution, whereas for the Xeon PCs we employ off-the-shelf Debian 10 Buster. In addition to these new NPP systems, in the scope of our new EtherCAT-based Motion project, we have decided to use small x8664 servers, which will run the same Debian distribution as NPP. In this contribution we present the selected Operating Systems (OS) and discuss how we build, deploy and provision them to the diskless clients.  
poster icon Poster THPDP070 [0.758 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP070  
About • Received ※ 02 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 19 October 2023  
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
THPDP071 Application development on CPCI-S.0 Hardware at PSI controls, Linux, software, electron 1508
 
  • I.J. Johnson, R. Biffiger, D. Felici, W. Koprek, R. Rybaniec, B. Stef, G. Theidel
    PSI, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
 
  A Hardware and Software Toolbox is being created to accelerate the engineering of electronic components for large facility upgrades at the Paul Scherrer Institut. This Toolbox consists of modular hardware and Base Designs that follow the CPCI-S.0 concept. Our goal is to provide a starting foundation, tools, modules and libraries to simplify and accelerate developments. This contribution will focus on the Base Designs that provide advanced starting points for applications on MPSoC devices, AMD Zynq Ultrascale+. It is an environment containing both a ready-to-use system and functional building blocks. It features two main layers: one for the Processing System (PS) and one for the Programmable Logic (PL). The former is a collection of the software packages that run within an Operating System. The latter, lower layer consists of a seed Vivado project and an array of ready-to-use firmware modules. A set of device-tree-overlay scripts is also available to create high-level connections between PS and PL components.  
poster icon Poster THPDP071 [2.388 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP071  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 27 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 09 December 2023
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THPDP077 Tango Integration of the SKA-Low Power and Signal Distribution System controls, TANGO, software, monitoring 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 icon 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  
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THPDP078 Porting OpenMMC to STM32 Microcontrollers for Flexible AMC Development controls, MMI, interface, electron 1529
 
  • M.B. Stubbings, E.P.J. Perez Juarez, L.T. Stant
    DLS, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
  • A. Wujek
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
 
  Diamond Light Source has chosen the MicroTCA platform for high performance data acquisition and controls as part of the Diamond-II 4th generation light source upgrade. One requirement is the ability to create custom advanced mezzanine cards (AMCs) for signal conditioning and interlock support. To facilitate this, a module management controller (MMC) is required to negotiate payload power and communications between the AMC and MicroTCA shelf. A popular open-source firmware for controlling such a device is OpenMMC, a project from the Brazillian Light Source (LNLS), which employs a modular approach using FreeRTOS on ARM microcontrollers. Initially, OpenMMC supported the NXP LPC series of devices. However, to make use of Diamond’s existing ST Microelectronics (STM32) infrastructure, we have integrated a CERN fork of the project supporting STM32 microcontrollers into OpenMMC. In this paper, we outline our workflow and experiences introducing a new ARM device into the project.  
poster icon Poster THPDP078 [1.246 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP078  
About • Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 27 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 14 December 2023
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THPDP080 Gateware and Software for ALS-U Instrumentation controls, software, FPGA, timing 1536
 
  • L.M. Russo, A. Amodio, M.J. Chin, W.E. Norum, K.S. Penney, G.J. Portmann, J.M. Weber
    LBNL, Berkeley, California, USA
 
  Funding: Work supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.
The Advanced Light Source Upgrade (ALS-U) is a diffraction-limited light source upgrade project under development at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Instrumentation team is responsible for developing hardware, gateware, embedded software and control system integration for diagnostics projects, including Beam Position Monitor (BPM), Fast Orbit Feedback (FOFB), High Speed Digitizer (HSD), Beam Current Monitor (BCM), as well as Fast Machine Protection System (FMPS) and Timing. This paper describes the gateware and software approach to these projects, its challenges, tests and integration plans for the novel accumulation and storage rings and transfer lines.
 
poster icon Poster THPDP080 [4.586 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP080  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 27 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 15 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
THPDP085 LANSCE’s Timing System Status and Future Plans timing, controls, distributed, operation 1547
 
  • L.E. Walker, B.C. Atencio, S.A. Baily, D. Fratantonio, C.D. Hatch, M. Pieck, T. Ramakrishnan
    LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
 
  Funding: This work was supported by the U.S. DOE through the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). LANL is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the NNSA of U.S. DOE - Contract No. 89233218CNA000001
The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) operates at a maximum repetition rate of 120 Hz. Timing gates are required for synchronization of the accelerator to provide beam acceleration along the LINAC and beam distribution to the five experimental areas. They are also provided to other devices with sensitive operating points relative to the machine cycle. Over the last 50 years of operations many new time sensitive pieces of equipment have been added. This has changed the demand on, and complexity of, the timing system. Further driven by equipment obsolescence issues, the timing system un-derwent many upgrades and revitalization efforts, with the most significant deployment starting in 2016. Due to these upgrade efforts, the timing system architecture design changed from a purely centralized system, to a distributed event-based one. The purpose of this paper is to detail the current state of the timing system, as a hy-brid system with the gate events being generated from a new timing master system, while still utilizing legacy distribution and fanout systems. Upgrades to the distribu-tion system are planned, but due to the required beam delivery schedule, they can only be deployed in sections during four-month annual maintenance cycles. The paper will also cover the off-the-shelf solutions that have been found for standardization, and the efforts towards a life cycle management process.
LA-UR-23-31123
 
poster icon Poster THPDP085 [3.311 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP085  
About • Received ※ 29 September 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 06 December 2023 — Issued ※ 13 December 2023
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THPDP102 Machine Protection System at SARAF PLC, controls, detector, machine-protect 1573
 
  • A. Gaget, J. Dumas
    CEA-IRFU, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
  • A. Chancé, F. Gougnaud, T.J. Joannem, A. Lotode, S. Monnereau, V. Nadot
    CEA-DRF-IRFU, France
  • H. Isakov, A. Perry, E. Reinfeld, I. Shmuely, N. Tamim, L. Weissman
    Soreq NRC, Yavne, Israel
 
  CEA Saclay Irfu is in charge of the major part of the control system of the SARAF-LINAC accelerator based at Soreq in Israel. This scope also includes the Machine Protection System. This system prevents any damage in the accelerator by shutting down the beam in case of detection of risky incidents like interceptive diagnostics in the beam or vacuum or cooling defects. So far, the system has been used successfully up to the MEBT. It will be tested soon for the super conducting Linac consisting of 4 cryomodules and 27 cavities. This Machine Protection System relies on three sets: the MRF timing system that is the messenger of the "shut beam" messages coming from any devices, IOxOS MTCA boards with custom FPGA developments that monitor the Section Beam Current Transmission along the accelerator and a Beam Destination Master that manages the beam destination required. This Destination Master is based on a master PLC. It permanently monitors Siemens PLCs that are in charge of the "slow" detection for fields such as vacuum, cryogenic and cooling system. The paper describes the architecture of this protection system and the exchanges between these three main parts.  
poster icon Poster THPDP102 [2.104 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP102  
About • Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 06 December 2023 — Issued ※ 18 December 2023
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THSDSC01 Sector Focused Cyclotron Power Supply Control System Upgrade controls, power-supply, cyclotron, distributed 1578
 
  • X.J. Liu, S. An, Y. Chen, L. Ge, M. Li, J.Q. Wu, W. Zhang
    IMP/CAS, Lanzhou, People’s Republic of China
 
  The old power supply control system of SFC (Sector Focused Cyclotron) has been in operation for more than a decade. Control system architecture is centralized, and equipment failure rate is getting higher and higher. The new control system uses the EPICS architecture, and the hardware uses Advantech’s APAX modules. The IOC runs on the APAX host and interacts with the module through API functions. The system has been running very stable for several months without failure.  
slides icon Slides THSDSC01 [0.510 MB]  
poster icon Poster THSDSC01 [2.136 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THSDSC01  
About • Received ※ 30 September 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 06 December 2023 — Issued ※ 09 December 2023
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)