ICALEPCS2023 - List of Keywords (neutron)

Paper	Title	Other Keywords	Page
MO2AO05	Deployment of ADTimePix3 areaDetector Driver at Neutron and X-ray User Facilities	detector, controls, EPICS, software	90
	K.J. Gofron, J. Wlodek BNL, Upton, New York, USA S.C. Chong, F. Fumiaki, SG. Giles, G.S. Guyotte, SDL. Lyons ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA B. Vacaliuc ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
	Funding: This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Scientific User Facilities Division under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. TimePix3 is a 65k hybrid pixel readout chip with simultaneous Time-of-Arrival (ToA) and Time-over-Threshold (ToT) recording in each pixel. The chip operates without a trigger signal with a sparse readout where only pixels containing events are read out. The flexible architecture allows 40 MHits/s/cm² readout throughput, using simultaneous readout and acquisition by sharing readout logic with transport logic of superpixel matrix formed using 2x4 structure. The chip ToA records 1.5625 ns time resolution. The X-ray and charged particle events are counted directly. However, indirect neutron counts use 6Li fission in a scintillator matrix, such as ZnS(Ag). The fission space-charge region is limited to 5-9 um. A photon from scintillator material excites a photocathode electron, which is further multiplied in dual-stack MCP. The neutron count event is a cluster of electron events at the chip. We report on the EPICS areaDetector* ADTimePix3 driver that controls Serval*** using json commands. The driver directs data to storage and to a real-time processing pipeline and configures the chip. The time-stamped data are stored in raw .tpx3 file format and passed through a socket where the clustering software identifies individual neutron events. The conventional 2D images are available as images for each exposure frame, and a preview is useful for sample alignment. The areaDetector driver allows integration of time-enhanced capabilities of this detector into SNS beamlines controls and unprecedented time resolution. T Poikela et al 2014 JINST 9 C05013. https://github.com/areaDetector **Software provided by the vendor (ASI) that interfaces detector (10GE) and EPICS data acquisition ioc ADTimePix3
	Slides MO2AO05 [3.379 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-MO2AO05
About •	Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 08 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 28 October 2023
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TUMBCMO04	Real-Time Visualization and Peak Fitting of Time-of-Flight Neutron Diffraction at VULCAN	lattice, detector, EPICS, experiment	346
	B.A. Sobhani, Y. Chen ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
	In neutron scattering experiments at the VULCAN beamline at SNS, Gaussian fitting of dspace peaks can be used to summarize certain material properties of a sample. If this can be done in real time, it can also assist scientists in mid-experiment decision making. This paper describes a system developed in EPICS for visualizing dspace evolution and fitting dspace peaks in real-time at the VULCAN beamline.
	Slides TUMBCMO04 [0.433 MB]
	Poster TUMBCMO04 [0.338 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO04
About •	Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 28 November 2023 — Issued ※ 14 December 2023
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TUMBCMO27	EPICS IOC Integration with Rexroth Controller for a T-Zero Chopper	controls, EPICS, interface, PLC	429
	B.K. Krishna, M. Ruiz Rodriguez ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
	A neutron chopper is not typically used as a filter, but rather as a way to modulate a beam of neutrons to select a certain energy range or to enable time-of-flight measurements. T-Zero neutron choppers have been incorporated into several beamlines at SNS and are operated via a Rexroth controller. However, the current OPC is only compatible with Windows XP, which has led to the continued use of an XP machine to run both the Indradrive (Rexroth interface) and EPICS IOC. This setup has caused issues with integrating with our Data Acquisition server and requires separate maintenance. As a result, for a new beamline project, we opted to switch to the Rexroth XM22 controller with T-Zero chopper, which allows for the use of drivers provided by Rexroth in various programming languages. This paper will detail the XM22 controller drivers and explain how to utilize them to read PLC parameters from the controller into the EPICS application and its Phoebus/CSS interface.
	Slides TUMBCMO27 [0.389 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO27
About •	Received ※ 08 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 December 2023 — Accepted ※ 15 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023
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TUMBCMO37	Personnel Safety Systems for ESS Beam on Dump and Beam on Target Operations	MMI, operation, radiation, target	452
	M. Mansouri, A. Abujame, A. Andersson, M. Carroll, D. Daryadel, M. Eriksson, A. Farshidfar, R. Foroozan, V.A. Harahap, P. Holgersson, J. Lastow, G.L. Ljungquist, N. Naicker, A. Nordt, D. Paulic, A. Petrushenko, D.A. Plotnikov, Y. Takzare ESS, Lund, Sweden
	The European Spallation Source (ESS) is a Pan-European project with 13 European nations as members, including the host nations Sweden and Denmark. ESS has been through staged installation and commissioning of the facility over the past few years. Along with the facility evolution, several Personnel Safety Systems, as key contributors to the overall personnel safety, have been developed and commissioned to support the safe operation of e.g. test stand for cryomodules Site Acceptance Test, test stand for Ion Source and Low Energy Beam Transport, and trial operation of the Normal Conducting Linac. As ESS is preparing for Beam on Dump (BoD) and Beam on Target (BoT) operations in coming years, PSS development is ongoing to enable safe commissioning and operation of the Linear Accelerator, Target Station, Bunker, and day-one Neutron Instruments. Personnel Safety Systems at ESS (ESS PSS) is an integrated system that is composed of several PSS systems across the facility. Following the experience gained from the earlier PSS built at ESS, modularized solutions have been adopted for ESS PSS that can adapt to the evolving needs of the facility from BoD and BoT operations to installing new Neutron Instruments during facility steady-state operation. This paper provides an overview of the ESS PSS, and its commissioning plan to support BoD and BoT operations.
	Slides TUMBCMO37 [1.135 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO37
About •	Received ※ 07 October 2023 — Revised ※ 08 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 23 October 2023
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TUPDP029	Architecture of the Control System for the Jülich High Brilliance Neutron Source	controls, target, operation, software	565
	H. Kleines, Y. Beßler, O. Felden, R. Gebel, M. Glum, R. Hanslik, S. Janaschke, P. Kämmerling, A. Lehrach, D. Marschall, F. Palm, F. Suxdorf, J. Voigt FZJ, Jülich, Germany J. Baggemann, Th. Brückel, T. Gutberlet, A. Möller, U. Rücker, A. Steffens, P. Zakalek JCNS, Jülich, Germany O. Meusel, H. Podlech IAP, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
	In the Jülich High Brilliance Neutron Source (HBS) project Forschungszentrum Jülich is developing a novel High Current Accelerator-driven Neutron Source (HiCANS) that is competitive to medium-flux fission-based research reactors or spallation neutron sources. The HBS will include a 70 MeV linear accelerator which delivers a pulsed proton beam with an average current of 100 mA to three target stations. At each target station the average power will be 100 kW generating neutrons for at least six neutron instruments. The concept for the control system has been developed and published in the HBS technical design report. Main building blocks of the control system will be Control System Studio, EPICS and Siemens PLC technology (for vacuum, motion, personnel protection…). The timing system will be based on commercially available components from Micro-Research Finland. The accelerator LLRF will rely on MTCA.4 developments of DESY that are commercially available, too. A small fraction of the control system has already been implemented for the new JULIC neutron platform, which is an HBS target station demonstrator that has been developed at the existing JULIC cyclotron at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP029
About •	Received ※ 09 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 17 October 2023
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TUPDP074	Managing Robotics and Digitization Risk	GUI, experiment, software, controls	676
	D. Marais, J.C. Mostert, R. Prinsloo NECSA, Hartbeespoort, South Africa
	Robotic and digitization risks refer to the potential negative consequences that can arise from the use of robots and digital technologies in various industries, which include experimental physics control systems. Risks include the compromising or malfunctioning of these systems, resulting in injury, equipment damage, loss of data or disruptions to critical infrastructure and services. Mitigating these risks involves taking proactive steps to reduce the likelihood of negative consequences and minimize their impact if they do occur. A comprehensive risk management approach that incorporates a combination of technical, organizational, and cultural strategies can help mitigate the potential risks through the implementation of the following strategies which will be discussed in this presentation: Regular maintenance and testing of robotic systems; Implementation of strong cyber security measures; Employee training and awareness programs; Adoption of industry standards and best practices; Developing contingency plans and backup systems; Establishing clear ethical and social guidelines.
	Poster TUPDP074 [2.568 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP074
About •	Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023
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TUPDP113	A Flexible EPICS Framework for Sample Alignment at Neutron Beamlines	controls, EPICS, framework, operation	836
	J.P. Edelen, M.J. Henderson, M.C. Kilpatrick RadiaSoft LLC, Boulder, Colorado, USA S. Calder, B. Vacaliuc ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA R.D. Gregory, G.S. Guyotte, C.M. Hoffmann, B.K. Krishna ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
	Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science under Award Number DE-SC0021555. RadiaSoft has been developing a flexible front-end framework, written in Python, for rapidly developing and testing automated sample alignment IOCs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We utilize YAML-formatted configuration files to construct a thin abstraction layer of custom classes which provide an internal representation of the external hardware within a controls system. The abstraction layer takes advantage of the PCASPy and PyEpics libraries in order to serve EPICS process variables & respond to read/write requests. Our framework allows users to build a new IOC that has access to information about the sample environment in addition to user-defined machine learning models. The IOC then monitors for user inputs, performs user-defined operations on the beamline, and reports on its status back to the control system. Our IOCs can be booted from the command line, and we have developed command line tools for rapidly running and testing alignment processes. These tools can also be accessed through an EPICS GUI or in separate Python scripts. This presentation provides an overview of our software structure and showcases its use at two beamlines at ORNL.
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP113
About •	Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 22 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 04 December 2023 — Issued ※ 16 December 2023
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TUPDP114	Machine Learning Based Noise Reduction of Neutron Camera Images at ORNL	network, timing, target, operation	841
	I.V. Pogorelov, J.P. Edelen, M.J. Henderson, M.C. Kilpatrick RadiaSoft LLC, Boulder, Colorado, USA S. Calder, B. Vacaliuc ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA R.D. Gregory, G.S. Guyotte, C.M. Hoffmann, B.K. Krishna ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
	Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science under Award Number DE-SC0021555. Neutron cameras are utilized at the HB2A powder diffractometer to image the sample for alignment in the beam. Typically, neutron cameras are quite noisy as they are constantly being irradiated. Removal of this noise is challenging due to the irregular nature of the pixel intensity fluctuations and the tendency for it to change over time. RadiaSoft has developed a novel noise reduction method for neutron cameras that inscribes a lower envelope of the image signal. This process is then sped up using machine learning. Here we report on the results of our noise reduction method and describe our machine learning approach for speeding up the algorithm for use during operations.
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP114
About •	Received ※ 07 October 2023 — Revised ※ 22 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 11 December 2023 — Issued ※ 16 December 2023
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TUPDP116	Machine Learning Based Sample Alignment at TOPAZ	controls, alignment, network, operation	851
	M.J. Henderson, J.P. Edelen, M.C. Kilpatrick, I.V. Pogorelov RadiaSoft LLC, Boulder, Colorado, USA S. Calder, B. Vacaliuc ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA R.D. Gregory, G.S. Guyotte, C.M. Hoffmann, B.K. Krishna ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
	Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science under Award Number DE-SC0021555. Neutron scattering experiments are a critical tool for the exploration of molecular structure in compounds. The TOPAZ single crystal diffractometer at the Spallation Neutron Source studies these samples by illuminating samples with different energy neutron beams and recording the scattered neutrons. During the experiments the user will change temperature and sample position in order to illuminate different crystal faces and to study the sample in different environments. Maintaining alignment of the sample during this process is key to ensuring high quality data are collected. At present this process is performed manually by beamline scientists. RadiaSoft in collaboration with the beamline scientists and engineers at ORNL has developed a new machine learning based alignment software automating this process. We utilize a fully-connected convolutional neural network configured in a U-net architecture to identify the sample center of mass. We then move the sample using a custom python-based EPICS IOC interfaced with the motors. In this talk we provide an overview of our machine learning tools and show our initial results aligning samples at ORNL.
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP116
About •	Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 05 December 2023 — Issued ※ 11 December 2023
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WE3AO03	Noise Mitigation for Neutron Detector Data Transport	detector, FEM, electron, power-supply	1066
	K.J. Gofron BNL, Upton, New York, USA R. Knudson, C. Ndo ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA B. Vacaliuc ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
	Funding: This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Scientific User Facilities Division under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. Detector events at User Facilities require real-time fast transport of large data sets. Since construction, the SNS user facility successfully transported data using an in-house solution based on Channel Link LVDS point-to-point data protocol. Data transport solutions developed more recently have higher speed and more robustness; however, the significant hardware infrastructure investment limits migration to them. Compared to newer solutions the existing SNS LVDS data transport uses only parity error detection and LVDS frame error detection. The used channel link is DC coupled, and thus sensitive to noise from the electrical environment since it is difficult to maintain the same LVDS common reference potential over an extensive system of electronic boards in detector array networks. The SNS existing Channel Link* uses LVDS for data transport with clock of about 40 MHz and a mixture of parallel and serial data transport. The 7 bits per twisted pair in each clock cycle are transported over three pairs of Cat7 cable. The maximum data rate is about 840 Mbps per cat7 cable. The DS90CR217 or DS90CR218 and SN65LVDS32BD components are used with shielded Cat7 cabling in transporting LVDS data. Here we discuss noise mitigation methods to improve data transport within the existing as build infrastructure. We consider the role of shielding, ground loops, as well as specifically the use of toric ferrite insolation transformer for rf noise filtering. * K. Vodopivec et al., "High Throughput Data Acquisition with EPICS", 16th ICALEPCS, 2017, Barcelona Spain, doi: 10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2017-TUBPA05
	Slides WE3AO03 [3.420 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-WE3AO03
About •	Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 18 December 2023 — Issued ※ 22 December 2023
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THMBCMO02	Enhancing Data Management with SciCat: A Comprehensive Overview of a Metadata Catalogue for Research Infrastructures	experiment, database, controls, framework	1195
	C. Minotti, A. Ashton, S.E. Bliven, S. Egli PSI, Villigen PSI, Switzerland F.B. Bolmsten, M. Novelli, T.S. Richter ESS, Copenhagen, Denmark M. Leorato MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden D. McReynolds LBNL, Berkeley, California, USA L.A. Shemilt RFI, Didcot, United Kingdom
	As the volume and quantity of data continue to increase, the role of data management becomes even more crucial. It is essential to have tools that facilitate the management of data in order to manage the ever-growing amount of data. SciCat is a metadata catalogue that utilizes a NoSQL database, enabling it to accept heterogeneous data and customize it to meet the unique needs of scientists and facilities. With its API-centric architecture, SciCat simplifies the integration process with existing infrastructures, allowing for easy access to its capabilities and seamless integration into workflows, including cloud-based systems. The session aims to provide a comprehensive introduction of SciCat, a metadata catalogue started as a collaboration between PSI, ESS, and MAXIV, which has been adopted by numerous Research Infrastructures (RIs) worldwide. The presentation will delve into the guiding principles that underpin this project and the challenges that it endeavours to address. Moreover, it will showcase the features that have been implemented, starting from the ingestion of data to its eventual publication. Given the growing importance of the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles, the presentation will touch upon how their uptake is facilitated and will also provide an overview of the work carried out under the Horizon 2020 EU grant for FAIR.
	Slides THMBCMO02 [5.158 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO02
About •	Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 20 December 2023
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THMBCMO24	Time Synchronization and Timestamping for the ESS Neutron Instruments	detector, hardware, 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 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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THMBCMO36	Video Compression for areaDetector	detector, scattering, controls, EPICS	1290
	B.A. Sobhani ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
	At neutron sources such as SNS and HFIR, neutrons collide with neutron detectors at a much lower rate than light would for an optical detector. Additionally, the image typically does not pan or otherwise move. This means that the incremental element-by-element differences between frames will be small. This makes neutron imaging data an ideal candidate for video-level compression where the incremental differences between frames are compressed and sent, as opposed to image-level compression where the entire frame is compressed and sent. This paper describes an EPICS video compression plugin for areaDetector that was developed at SNS.
	Slides THMBCMO36 [0.312 MB]
	Poster THMBCMO36 [0.221 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO36
About •	Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 15 December 2023
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THPDP014	SECoP and SECoP@HMC - Metadata in the Sample Environment Communication Protocol	controls, experiment, software, interface	1322
	K. Kiefer, B. Klemke, L. Rossa, P. Wegmann HZB, Berlin, Germany G. Brandl, E. Faulhaber, A. Zaft MLZ, Garching, Germany N. Ekström, A. Pettersson ESS, Lund, Sweden J. Kotanski, T. Kracht DESY, Hamburg, Germany M. Zolliker PSI, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
	Funding: The project SECoP@HMC receives funding by the Helmholtz Association’s Initiative and Networking Fund (IVF). The integration of sample environment (SE) equipment in x-ray and neutron experiments is a complex challenge both in the physical world and in the digital world. Dif-ferent experiment control software offer different interfac-es for the connection of SE equipment. Therefore, it is time-consuming to integrate new SE or to share SE equipment between facilities. To tackle this problem, the International Society for Sample Environment (ISSE, [1]) developed the Sample Environment Communication Protocol (SECoP) to standardize the communication between instrument control software and SE equipment [2]. SECoP offers, on the one hand, a generalized way to control SE equipment. On the other hand, SECoP holds the possibility to transport SE metadata in a well-defined way. In addition, SECoP provides machine readable self-description of the SE equipment which enables a fully automated integration into the instrument control soft-ware and into the processes for data storage. Using SECoP as a common standard for controlling SE equipment and generating SE metadata will save resources and intrinsi-cally give the opportunity to supply standardized and FAIR data compliant SE metadata. It will also supply a well-defined interface for user-provided SE equipment, for equipment shared by different research facilities and for industry. In this article will show how SECoP can help to provide a meaningful and complete set of metadata for SE equipment and we will present SECoP and the SECoP@HMC project supported by the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration. *K. Kiefer, et al. (2020). An introduction to SECoP - the sample environment communication protocol. Journal of Neutron Research, 21(3-4), pp.181-195
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP014
About •	Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 22 December 2023
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THPDP052	Characterizing Motion Control Systems to Enable Accurate Continuous and Event-Based Scans	laser, controls, PLC, timing	1431
	J.E. Petersson, T. Bögershausen, N. Holmberg, M. Olsson, T.S. Richter, F. Rojas ESS, Lund, Sweden
	The European Spallation Source (ESS) is adopting innovative data acquisition and analysis methods using global timestamping for neutron scattering research. This study characterises the timing accuracy and reliability of the instrument control system by examining an integrated motion and fast detection system. We designed an experimental apparatus featuring a motion axis controlled by a Beckhoff programmable logic controller (PLC) using TwinCAT 3 software. The encoder readback is timestamped in the PLC, which is time-synchronised with the ESS master clock via a Microresearch Finland event receiver (EVR) using Precision Time Protocol (PTP). We repeatedly scanned the motor between known positions at different speeds. The system was characterised by correlating the position and timestamp recorded by the PLC with independent information using a fast optical position sensor read out directly by the MRF system. The findings of this study provide a good benchmark for the upcoming experiments in neutron scattering research at ESS and should be interesting for those aiming to build similar setups.
	Poster THPDP052 [1.185 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP052
About •	Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 12 December 2023
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FR2AO02	A Digital Twin for Neutron Instruments	simulation, software, experiment, detector	1626
	S. Nourbakhsh, Y. Le Goc, P. Mutti ILL, Grenoble, France
	Data from virtual experiments are becoming an extremely valuable asset for research infrastructures in a multitude of aspects and different actors: for instrument scientists to develop and optimise current and future instruments; for training external users in the usage of the instrument control system; for scientists in studying, quantifying and reducing instrumental effects on acquired data. Furthermore large sets of simulated data are also a necessary ingredient for the development of surrogate models for faster and more accurate simulation, reduction and analysis of the data. The development of a digital twin of an instrument can answer such different needs with a single unified approach wrapping in a user-friendly envelop the knowledge about the instrument physical description, the specific of the simulation packages and their interaction, and the high performing computing setup. In this article we will present the general architecture of the digital twin prototype developed at the ILL in the framework of the PANOSC European project in close collaboration with other research facilities (ESS and EuXFel). The communication patterns (based on ZQM) and interaction between the control system (NOMAD), simulation software (McStas), instrument description and configuration, process management (CAMEO) will be detailed. The adoption of FAIR principles for data formats and policies in combination with open-source software make it a sustainable project both for development and maintenance in the mid and long-term.
	Slides FR2AO02 [1.245 MB]
DOI •	reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-FR2AO02
About •	Received ※ 31 October 2023 — Revised ※ 02 November 2023 — Accepted ※ 05 December 2023 — Issued ※ 07 December 2023
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Paper

Title

Other Keywords

Page

MO2AO05

Deployment of ADTimePix3 areaDetector Driver at Neutron and X-ray User Facilities

detector, controls, EPICS, software

90

K.J. Gofron, J. Wlodek
BNL, Upton, New York, USA
S.C. Chong, F. Fumiaki, SG. Giles, G.S. Guyotte, SDL. Lyons
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
B. Vacaliuc
ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

Funding: This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Scientific User Facilities Division under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.
TimePix3 is a 65k hybrid pixel readout chip with simultaneous Time-of-Arrival (ToA) and Time-over-Threshold (ToT) recording in each pixel*. The chip operates without a trigger signal with a sparse readout where only pixels containing events are read out. The flexible architecture allows 40 MHits/s/cm² readout throughput, using simultaneous readout and acquisition by sharing readout logic with transport logic of superpixel matrix formed using 2x4 structure. The chip ToA records 1.5625 ns time resolution. The X-ray and charged particle events are counted directly. However, indirect neutron counts use 6Li fission in a scintillator matrix, such as ZnS(Ag). The fission space-charge region is limited to 5-9 um. A photon from scintillator material excites a photocathode electron, which is further multiplied in dual-stack MCP. The neutron count event is a cluster of electron events at the chip. We report on the EPICS areaDetector** ADTimePix3 driver that controls Serval*** using json commands. The driver directs data to storage and to a real-time processing pipeline and configures the chip. The time-stamped data are stored in raw .tpx3 file format and passed through a socket where the clustering software identifies individual neutron events. The conventional 2D images are available as images for each exposure frame, and a preview is useful for sample alignment. The areaDetector driver allows integration of time-enhanced capabilities of this detector into SNS beamlines controls and unprecedented time resolution.
*T Poikela et al 2014 JINST 9 C05013.
**https://github.com/areaDetector
***Software provided by the vendor (ASI) that interfaces detector (10GE) and EPICS data acquisition ioc ADTimePix3

Slides MO2AO05 [3.379 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-MO2AO05

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Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 08 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 28 October 2023

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TUMBCMO04

Real-Time Visualization and Peak Fitting of Time-of-Flight Neutron Diffraction at VULCAN

lattice, detector, EPICS, experiment

346

B.A. Sobhani, Y. Chen
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

In neutron scattering experiments at the VULCAN beamline at SNS, Gaussian fitting of dspace peaks can be used to summarize certain material properties of a sample. If this can be done in real time, it can also assist scientists in mid-experiment decision making. This paper describes a system developed in EPICS for visualizing dspace evolution and fitting dspace peaks in real-time at the VULCAN beamline.

Slides TUMBCMO04 [0.433 MB]

Poster TUMBCMO04 [0.338 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO04

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Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 28 November 2023 — Issued ※ 14 December 2023

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TUMBCMO27

EPICS IOC Integration with Rexroth Controller for a T-Zero Chopper

controls, EPICS, interface, PLC

429

B.K. Krishna, M. Ruiz Rodriguez
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

A neutron chopper is not typically used as a filter, but rather as a way to modulate a beam of neutrons to select a certain energy range or to enable time-of-flight measurements. T-Zero neutron choppers have been incorporated into several beamlines at SNS and are operated via a Rexroth controller. However, the current OPC is only compatible with Windows XP, which has led to the continued use of an XP machine to run both the Indradrive (Rexroth interface) and EPICS IOC. This setup has caused issues with integrating with our Data Acquisition server and requires separate maintenance. As a result, for a new beamline project, we opted to switch to the Rexroth XM22 controller with T-Zero chopper, which allows for the use of drivers provided by Rexroth in various programming languages. This paper will detail the XM22 controller drivers and explain how to utilize them to read PLC parameters from the controller into the EPICS application and its Phoebus/CSS interface.

Slides TUMBCMO27 [0.389 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO27

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Received ※ 08 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 December 2023 — Accepted ※ 15 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023

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TUMBCMO37

Personnel Safety Systems for ESS Beam on Dump and Beam on Target Operations

MMI, operation, radiation, target

452

M. Mansouri, A. Abujame, A. Andersson, M. Carroll, D. Daryadel, M. Eriksson, A. Farshidfar, R. Foroozan, V.A. Harahap, P. Holgersson, J. Lastow, G.L. Ljungquist, N. Naicker, A. Nordt, D. Paulic, A. Petrushenko, D.A. Plotnikov, Y. Takzare
ESS, Lund, Sweden

The European Spallation Source (ESS) is a Pan-European project with 13 European nations as members, including the host nations Sweden and Denmark. ESS has been through staged installation and commissioning of the facility over the past few years. Along with the facility evolution, several Personnel Safety Systems, as key contributors to the overall personnel safety, have been developed and commissioned to support the safe operation of e.g. test stand for cryomodules Site Acceptance Test, test stand for Ion Source and Low Energy Beam Transport, and trial operation of the Normal Conducting Linac. As ESS is preparing for Beam on Dump (BoD) and Beam on Target (BoT) operations in coming years, PSS development is ongoing to enable safe commissioning and operation of the Linear Accelerator, Target Station, Bunker, and day-one Neutron Instruments. Personnel Safety Systems at ESS (ESS PSS) is an integrated system that is composed of several PSS systems across the facility. Following the experience gained from the earlier PSS built at ESS, modularized solutions have been adopted for ESS PSS that can adapt to the evolving needs of the facility from BoD and BoT operations to installing new Neutron Instruments during facility steady-state operation. This paper provides an overview of the ESS PSS, and its commissioning plan to support BoD and BoT operations.

Slides TUMBCMO37 [1.135 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUMBCMO37

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Received ※ 07 October 2023 — Revised ※ 08 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 23 October 2023

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TUPDP029

Architecture of the Control System for the Jülich High Brilliance Neutron Source

controls, target, operation, software

565

H. Kleines, Y. Beßler, O. Felden, R. Gebel, M. Glum, R. Hanslik, S. Janaschke, P. Kämmerling, A. Lehrach, D. Marschall, F. Palm, F. Suxdorf, J. Voigt
FZJ, Jülich, Germany
J. Baggemann, Th. Brückel, T. Gutberlet, A. Möller, U. Rücker, A. Steffens, P. Zakalek
JCNS, Jülich, Germany
O. Meusel, H. Podlech
IAP, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

In the Jülich High Brilliance Neutron Source (HBS) project Forschungszentrum Jülich is developing a novel High Current Accelerator-driven Neutron Source (HiCANS) that is competitive to medium-flux fission-based research reactors or spallation neutron sources. The HBS will include a 70 MeV linear accelerator which delivers a pulsed proton beam with an average current of 100 mA to three target stations. At each target station the average power will be 100 kW generating neutrons for at least six neutron instruments. The concept for the control system has been developed and published in the HBS technical design report. Main building blocks of the control system will be Control System Studio, EPICS and Siemens PLC technology (for vacuum, motion, personnel protection…). The timing system will be based on commercially available components from Micro-Research Finland. The accelerator LLRF will rely on MTCA.4 developments of DESY that are commercially available, too. A small fraction of the control system has already been implemented for the new JULIC neutron platform, which is an HBS target station demonstrator that has been developed at the existing JULIC cyclotron at Forschungszentrum Jülich.

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP029

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Received ※ 09 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 October 2023 — Issued ※ 17 October 2023

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TUPDP074

Managing Robotics and Digitization Risk

GUI, experiment, software, controls

676

D. Marais, J.C. Mostert, R. Prinsloo
NECSA, Hartbeespoort, South Africa

Robotic and digitization risks refer to the potential negative consequences that can arise from the use of robots and digital technologies in various industries, which include experimental physics control systems. Risks include the compromising or malfunctioning of these systems, resulting in injury, equipment damage, loss of data or disruptions to critical infrastructure and services. Mitigating these risks involves taking proactive steps to reduce the likelihood of negative consequences and minimize their impact if they do occur. A comprehensive risk management approach that incorporates a combination of technical, organizational, and cultural strategies can help mitigate the potential risks through the implementation of the following strategies which will be discussed in this presentation: Regular maintenance and testing of robotic systems; Implementation of strong cyber security measures; Employee training and awareness programs; Adoption of industry standards and best practices; Developing contingency plans and backup systems; Establishing clear ethical and social guidelines.

Poster TUPDP074 [2.568 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP074

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Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 19 December 2023

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TUPDP113

A Flexible EPICS Framework for Sample Alignment at Neutron Beamlines

controls, EPICS, framework, operation

836

J.P. Edelen, M.J. Henderson, M.C. Kilpatrick
RadiaSoft LLC, Boulder, Colorado, USA
S. Calder, B. Vacaliuc
ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
R.D. Gregory, G.S. Guyotte, C.M. Hoffmann, B.K. Krishna
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science under Award Number DE-SC0021555.
RadiaSoft has been developing a flexible front-end framework, written in Python, for rapidly developing and testing automated sample alignment IOCs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We utilize YAML-formatted configuration files to construct a thin abstraction layer of custom classes which provide an internal representation of the external hardware within a controls system. The abstraction layer takes advantage of the PCASPy and PyEpics libraries in order to serve EPICS process variables & respond to read/write requests. Our framework allows users to build a new IOC that has access to information about the sample environment in addition to user-defined machine learning models. The IOC then monitors for user inputs, performs user-defined operations on the beamline, and reports on its status back to the control system. Our IOCs can be booted from the command line, and we have developed command line tools for rapidly running and testing alignment processes. These tools can also be accessed through an EPICS GUI or in separate Python scripts. This presentation provides an overview of our software structure and showcases its use at two beamlines at ORNL.

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP113

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Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 22 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 04 December 2023 — Issued ※ 16 December 2023

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TUPDP114

Machine Learning Based Noise Reduction of Neutron Camera Images at ORNL

network, timing, target, operation

841

I.V. Pogorelov, J.P. Edelen, M.J. Henderson, M.C. Kilpatrick
RadiaSoft LLC, Boulder, Colorado, USA
S. Calder, B. Vacaliuc
ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
R.D. Gregory, G.S. Guyotte, C.M. Hoffmann, B.K. Krishna
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science under Award Number DE-SC0021555.
Neutron cameras are utilized at the HB2A powder diffractometer to image the sample for alignment in the beam. Typically, neutron cameras are quite noisy as they are constantly being irradiated. Removal of this noise is challenging due to the irregular nature of the pixel intensity fluctuations and the tendency for it to change over time. RadiaSoft has developed a novel noise reduction method for neutron cameras that inscribes a lower envelope of the image signal. This process is then sped up using machine learning. Here we report on the results of our noise reduction method and describe our machine learning approach for speeding up the algorithm for use during operations.

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP114

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Received ※ 07 October 2023 — Revised ※ 22 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 11 December 2023 — Issued ※ 16 December 2023

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TUPDP116

Machine Learning Based Sample Alignment at TOPAZ

controls, alignment, network, operation

851

M.J. Henderson, J.P. Edelen, M.C. Kilpatrick, I.V. Pogorelov
RadiaSoft LLC, Boulder, Colorado, USA
S. Calder, B. Vacaliuc
ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
R.D. Gregory, G.S. Guyotte, C.M. Hoffmann, B.K. Krishna
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science under Award Number DE-SC0021555.
Neutron scattering experiments are a critical tool for the exploration of molecular structure in compounds. The TOPAZ single crystal diffractometer at the Spallation Neutron Source studies these samples by illuminating samples with different energy neutron beams and recording the scattered neutrons. During the experiments the user will change temperature and sample position in order to illuminate different crystal faces and to study the sample in different environments. Maintaining alignment of the sample during this process is key to ensuring high quality data are collected. At present this process is performed manually by beamline scientists. RadiaSoft in collaboration with the beamline scientists and engineers at ORNL has developed a new machine learning based alignment software automating this process. We utilize a fully-connected convolutional neural network configured in a U-net architecture to identify the sample center of mass. We then move the sample using a custom python-based EPICS IOC interfaced with the motors. In this talk we provide an overview of our machine learning tools and show our initial results aligning samples at ORNL.

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-TUPDP116

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Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 05 December 2023 — Issued ※ 11 December 2023

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WE3AO03

Noise Mitigation for Neutron Detector Data Transport

detector, FEM, electron, power-supply

1066

K.J. Gofron
BNL, Upton, New York, USA
R. Knudson, C. Ndo
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA
B. Vacaliuc
ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

Funding: This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Scientific User Facilities Division under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Detector events at User Facilities require real-time fast transport of large data sets. Since construction, the SNS user facility successfully transported data using an in-house solution based on Channel Link LVDS point-to-point data protocol. Data transport solutions developed more recently have higher speed and more robustness; however, the significant hardware infrastructure investment limits migration to them. Compared to newer solutions the existing SNS LVDS data transport uses only parity error detection and LVDS frame error detection. The used channel link is DC coupled, and thus sensitive to noise from the electrical environment since it is difficult to maintain the same LVDS common reference potential over an extensive system of electronic boards in detector array networks. The SNS existing Channel Link* uses LVDS for data transport with clock of about 40 MHz and a mixture of parallel and serial data transport. The 7 bits per twisted pair in each clock cycle are transported over three pairs of Cat7 cable. The maximum data rate is about 840 Mbps per cat7 cable. The DS90CR217 or DS90CR218 and SN65LVDS32BD components are used with shielded Cat7 cabling in transporting LVDS data. Here we discuss noise mitigation methods to improve data transport within the existing as build infrastructure. We consider the role of shielding, ground loops, as well as specifically the use of toric ferrite insolation transformer for rf noise filtering.
* K. Vodopivec et al., "High Throughput Data Acquisition with EPICS", 16th ICALEPCS, 2017, Barcelona Spain, doi: 10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2017-TUBPA05

Slides WE3AO03 [3.420 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-WE3AO03

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Received ※ 04 October 2023 — Revised ※ 11 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 18 December 2023 — Issued ※ 22 December 2023

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THMBCMO02

Enhancing Data Management with SciCat: A Comprehensive Overview of a Metadata Catalogue for Research Infrastructures

experiment, database, controls, framework

1195

C. Minotti, A. Ashton, S.E. Bliven, S. Egli
PSI, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
F.B. Bolmsten, M. Novelli, T.S. Richter
ESS, Copenhagen, Denmark
M. Leorato
MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
D. McReynolds
LBNL, Berkeley, California, USA
L.A. Shemilt
RFI, Didcot, United Kingdom

As the volume and quantity of data continue to increase, the role of data management becomes even more crucial. It is essential to have tools that facilitate the management of data in order to manage the ever-growing amount of data. SciCat is a metadata catalogue that utilizes a NoSQL database, enabling it to accept heterogeneous data and customize it to meet the unique needs of scientists and facilities. With its API-centric architecture, SciCat simplifies the integration process with existing infrastructures, allowing for easy access to its capabilities and seamless integration into workflows, including cloud-based systems. The session aims to provide a comprehensive introduction of SciCat, a metadata catalogue started as a collaboration between PSI, ESS, and MAXIV, which has been adopted by numerous Research Infrastructures (RIs) worldwide. The presentation will delve into the guiding principles that underpin this project and the challenges that it endeavours to address. Moreover, it will showcase the features that have been implemented, starting from the ingestion of data to its eventual publication. Given the growing importance of the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles, the presentation will touch upon how their uptake is facilitated and will also provide an overview of the work carried out under the Horizon 2020 EU grant for FAIR.

Slides THMBCMO02 [5.158 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO02

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Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 09 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 20 December 2023

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THMBCMO24

Time Synchronization and Timestamping for the ESS Neutron Instruments

detector, hardware, 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 THMBCMO24 [0.384 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO24

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Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 11 December 2023 — Issued ※ 13 December 2023

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THMBCMO36

Video Compression for areaDetector

detector, scattering, controls, EPICS

1290

B.A. Sobhani
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

At neutron sources such as SNS and HFIR, neutrons collide with neutron detectors at a much lower rate than light would for an optical detector. Additionally, the image typically does not pan or otherwise move. This means that the incremental element-by-element differences between frames will be small. This makes neutron imaging data an ideal candidate for video-level compression where the incremental differences between frames are compressed and sent, as opposed to image-level compression where the entire frame is compressed and sent. This paper describes an EPICS video compression plugin for areaDetector that was developed at SNS.

Slides THMBCMO36 [0.312 MB]

Poster THMBCMO36 [0.221 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THMBCMO36

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Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Revised ※ 12 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 13 December 2023 — Issued ※ 15 December 2023

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THPDP014

SECoP and SECoP@HMC - Metadata in the Sample Environment Communication Protocol

controls, experiment, software, interface

1322

K. Kiefer, B. Klemke, L. Rossa, P. Wegmann
HZB, Berlin, Germany
G. Brandl, E. Faulhaber, A. Zaft
MLZ, Garching, Germany
N. Ekström, A. Pettersson
ESS, Lund, Sweden
J. Kotanski, T. Kracht
DESY, Hamburg, Germany
M. Zolliker
PSI, Villigen PSI, Switzerland

Funding: The project SECoP@HMC receives funding by the Helmholtz Association’s Initiative and Networking Fund (IVF).
The integration of sample environment (SE) equipment in x-ray and neutron experiments is a complex challenge both in the physical world and in the digital world. Dif-ferent experiment control software offer different interfac-es for the connection of SE equipment. Therefore, it is time-consuming to integrate new SE or to share SE equipment between facilities. To tackle this problem, the International Society for Sample Environment (ISSE, [1]) developed the Sample Environment Communication Protocol (SECoP) to standardize the communication between instrument control software and SE equipment [2]. SECoP offers, on the one hand, a generalized way to control SE equipment. On the other hand, SECoP holds the possibility to transport SE metadata in a well-defined way. In addition, SECoP provides machine readable self-description of the SE equipment which enables a fully automated integration into the instrument control soft-ware and into the processes for data storage. Using SECoP as a common standard for controlling SE equipment and generating SE metadata will save resources and intrinsi-cally give the opportunity to supply standardized and FAIR data compliant SE metadata. It will also supply a well-defined interface for user-provided SE equipment, for equipment shared by different research facilities and for industry. In this article will show how SECoP can help to provide a meaningful and complete set of metadata for SE equipment and we will present SECoP and the SECoP@HMC project supported by the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration.
*K. Kiefer, et al. (2020). An introduction to SECoP - the sample environment communication protocol. Journal of Neutron Research, 21(3-4), pp.181-195

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP014

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Received ※ 06 October 2023 — Revised ※ 10 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 14 December 2023 — Issued ※ 22 December 2023

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THPDP052

Characterizing Motion Control Systems to Enable Accurate Continuous and Event-Based Scans

laser, controls, PLC, timing

1431

J.E. Petersson, T. Bögershausen, N. Holmberg, M. Olsson, T.S. Richter, F. Rojas
ESS, Lund, Sweden

The European Spallation Source (ESS) is adopting innovative data acquisition and analysis methods using global timestamping for neutron scattering research. This study characterises the timing accuracy and reliability of the instrument control system by examining an integrated motion and fast detection system. We designed an experimental apparatus featuring a motion axis controlled by a Beckhoff programmable logic controller (PLC) using TwinCAT 3 software. The encoder readback is timestamped in the PLC, which is time-synchronised with the ESS master clock via a Microresearch Finland event receiver (EVR) using Precision Time Protocol (PTP). We repeatedly scanned the motor between known positions at different speeds. The system was characterised by correlating the position and timestamp recorded by the PLC with independent information using a fast optical position sensor read out directly by the MRF system. The findings of this study provide a good benchmark for the upcoming experiments in neutron scattering research at ESS and should be interesting for those aiming to build similar setups.

Poster THPDP052 [1.185 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-THPDP052

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Received ※ 05 October 2023 — Accepted ※ 08 December 2023 — Issued ※ 12 December 2023

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FR2AO02

A Digital Twin for Neutron Instruments

simulation, software, experiment, detector

1626

S. Nourbakhsh, Y. Le Goc, P. Mutti
ILL, Grenoble, France

Data from virtual experiments are becoming an extremely valuable asset for research infrastructures in a multitude of aspects and different actors: for instrument scientists to develop and optimise current and future instruments; for training external users in the usage of the instrument control system; for scientists in studying, quantifying and reducing instrumental effects on acquired data. Furthermore large sets of simulated data are also a necessary ingredient for the development of surrogate models for faster and more accurate simulation, reduction and analysis of the data. The development of a digital twin of an instrument can answer such different needs with a single unified approach wrapping in a user-friendly envelop the knowledge about the instrument physical description, the specific of the simulation packages and their interaction, and the high performing computing setup. In this article we will present the general architecture of the digital twin prototype developed at the ILL in the framework of the PANOSC European project in close collaboration with other research facilities (ESS and EuXFel). The communication patterns (based on ZQM) and interaction between the control system (NOMAD), simulation software (McStas), instrument description and configuration, process management (CAMEO) will be detailed. The adoption of FAIR principles for data formats and policies in combination with open-source software make it a sustainable project both for development and maintenance in the mid and long-term.

Slides FR2AO02 [1.245 MB]

DOI •

reference for this paper ※ doi:10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2023-FR2AO02

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Received ※ 31 October 2023 — Revised ※ 02 November 2023 — Accepted ※ 05 December 2023 — Issued ※ 07 December 2023

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