Controls & Monitoring Overview

1. Controls & Monitoring Overview J. Leaver 03/06/2009

2. Outline • Overview of MICE • Systems requiring control & monitoring • Outline of C&M framework • EPICS

3. MICE Layout

4. Required C&M Systems: Beamline

5. Required C&M Systems: Beamline • Target • Drive (PSU, extraction, temperature monitoring, etc.) • Controller (actuation enable, dip depth, timing, etc.) • Beam Loss (Sector 7/8, total, c.f. Target position) • Beamline Magnets [Q1-Q9, D1-D2] (PSU) • Pion Decay Solenoid (PSU, cryo)

6. Required C&M Systems: Instrumentation

7. Required C&M Systems: Instrumentation • Fermilab Beam Profile Monitors (PMT, sensor temperature) • Time of Flight System (PMT HV) • Cherenkov System (PMT HV, temperature, humidity) • Diffuser (motor control, disc position) • Tracker • Spectrometer Solenoid (PSU, cryo) • Magnetic Field Probes (B-field, sensor temperature) • AFEIIts (readout configuration & control, temperature monitoring) • AFEIIt Infrastructure (PSU, cryo) • Calorimeter System • KL Calorimeter (PMT HV) • Electron Muon Ranger (PMT HV)

8. Required C&M Systems: Cooling Channel

9. Required C&M Systems: Cooling Channel • Hydrogen Absorbers • Focus Coils (PSU, cryo) • Hydrogen System (PSU, pumps, valves, vacuum, cryo) • RF Cavities • Coupling Coils (PSU, cryo) • RF System (PSU, amplifiers, B-field probes, feedback)

10. Required C&M Systems: Auxiliary • DATE Status • Run state of global DAQ system (armed, taking data, idle, error, etc.) • Network Status • State of each PC on the DAQ & Control Networks (link up/down, correct ID, necessary services running)

11. Required C&M System Features • Reliability • Need months/years of uninterrupted runtime • No C&M = no experiment • Need effective help & support when problems occur • Plus ability to resolve issues without waiting for vendor support (availability of source code) • Scalability • Facility to add new systems to existing setup with minimal development overheads/performance impact

12. Required C&M System Features • Ease of use • But extensible for arbitrarily complex custom systems • Error reporting • Clear alarms when fault conditions occur • Data archiving • Permanent & accessible record of all significant monitoring parameters

13. EPICS • Collaboration • World wide collaboration sharing designs, software & expertise for implementing large-scale control systems • Control System Architecture • Client/server model with efficient communication protocol (Channel Access) for passing data • Distributed real-time database of machine values • Software Toolkit • Collection of software tools which can be integrated to provide a comprehensive & scalable control system

14. Why Use EPICS for MICE? • Free Open Source software • Mature packages • Stable, robust infrastructure • Widely used in scientific laboratories & industry • Significant expertise available • Good support/documentation • Collaboration members with prior EPICS experience (e.g. Fermilab → DØ) • Many tools available for common C&M tasks • (Relatively) easy to develop new applications

15. EPICS Fundamentals Monitoring Application Control Application • Each control/status parameter represented by a ‘Process Variable’ (PV) • PV: Named piece of data (e.g. temperature) with a set of attributes (e.g. safe operating limits) • Channel Access (CA) servers provide access to PVs • CA clients read/write PVs to perform control & monitoring tasks • Network-based, distributed system • PVs can be spread over multiple servers, accessed transparently over network Channel Access Client Channel Access Client Network Channel Access Server Channel Access Server Channel Access Server Process Variables Process Variables Process Variables

16. EPICS Servers Network • EPICS servers typically connect to hardware • PVs often correspond directly to physical device states or control settings • 2 types of server • Input/Output Controller (IOC) • Portable CA server • Approx. equal numbers of each type used in MICE IOC Channel Access Server - Channel Access - Database - Device / Driver Support Portable Channel Access Server - Channel Access OR Custom Code Hardware Hardware

17. EPICS Servers Network • System configuration & hardware IO connections defined by PV record database • Existing driver support for many devices & standard communication interfaces • Server creation often a matter of database configuration rather than software development • Runs on vxWorks/RTEMS boards, or PCs (Linux, Win, Mac, etc.) • Suitable for most ‘standard’ hardware systems IOC Channel Access Server - Channel Access - Database - Device / Driver Support Portable Channel Access Server - Channel Access Custom Code Hardware Hardware

18. EPICS Servers Network • C++ library containing CA & PV framework • Use with arbitrary hardware access code to produce fully custom servers • MICE wrapper framework greatly simplifies creation of portable servers • Runs on PCs (Linux, Win, Mac, etc.) • Suitable for non-standard hardware & complex software architectures IOC Channel Access Server - Channel Access - Database - Device / Driver Support Portable Channel Access Server - Channel Access Custom Code Hardware Hardware

19. EPICS Clients • Clients provide (user) interface to C&M system • Abstracted from hardware → clients only need to access PVs • Packages available to facilitate building control/monitoring displays • Extensible Display Manager (EDM), Motif Editor and Display Manager (MEDM), etc. • Interactive graphical environments enabling PVs to be attached to control/display widgets • No low-level programming required • ~60% of MICE C&M systems use EDM

20. EPICS Clients • Not limited to standard GUI builders - CA bindings exist for many languages/tools • C/C++, Java, Matlab, Perl, Python, LabVIEW, etc. • ~30% of MICE C&M systems use custom C++ wrapper, with QT GUIs • Well-established client tools provide core C&M functionality • Alarm Handler, Channel Archiver, etc. • Minimises required infrastructure development effort

21. C&M Systems Overview