Author: Jackson, S.
Paper Title Page
MOPHA064 An Off-Momentum Beam Loss Feedback Controller and Graphical User Interface for the LHC 360
 
  • B. Salvachua, D. Alves, G. Azzopardi, S. Jackson, D. Mirarchi, M. Pojer
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
  • G. Valentino
    University of Malta, Information and Communication Technology, Msida, Malta
 
  During LHC operation, a campaign to validate the configuration of the LHC collimation system is conducted every few months. This is performed by means of loss maps, where specific beam losses are deliberately generated with the resulting loss patterns compared to expectations. The LHC collimators have to protect the machine from both betatron and off-momentum losses. In order to validate the off-momentum protection, beam losses are generated by shifting the RF frequency using a low intensity beam. This is a delicate process that, in the past, often led to the beam being dumped due to excessive losses. To avoid this, a feedback system based on the 100 Hz data stream from the LHC Beam Loss system has been implemented. When given a target RF frequency, the feedback system approaches this frequency in steps while monitoring the losses until the selected loss pattern conditions are reached, so avoiding the excessive losses that lead to a beam dump. This paper will describe the LHC off-momentum beam loss feedback system and the results achieved.  
poster icon Poster MOPHA064 [5.005 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2019-MOPHA064  
About • paper received ※ 27 September 2019       paper accepted ※ 10 October 2019       issue date ※ 30 August 2020  
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MOPHA151 Feasibility of Hardware Acceleration in the LHC Orbit Feedback Controller 584
 
  • L. Grech, D. Alves, S. Jackson, J. Wenninger
    CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland
  • G. Valentino
    University of Malta, Information and Communication Technology, Msida, Malta
 
  Orbit correction in accelerators typically make use of a linear model of the machine, called the Response Matrix (RM), that relates local beam deflections to position changes. The RM is used to obtain a Pseudo-Inverse (PI), which is used in a feedback configuration, where positional errors from the reference orbit as measured by Beam Position Monitors (BPMs) are used to calculate the required change in the current flowing through the Closed Orbit Dipoles (CODs). The calculation of the PIs from the RMs is a crucial part in the LHC’s Orbit Feedback Controller (OFC), however in the present implementation of the OFC this calculation is omitted as it takes too much time to calculate and thus is unsuitable in a real-time system. As a temporary solution the LHC operators pre-calculate the new PIs outside the OFC, and then manually upload them to the OFC in advance. In this paper we aim to find a solution to this computational bottleneck through hardware acceleration in order to act automatically and as quickly as possible to COD and/or BPM failures by re-calculating the PIs within the OFC. These results will eventually be used in the renovation of the OFC for the LHC’s Run 3.  
poster icon Poster MOPHA151 [0.844 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2019-MOPHA151  
About • paper received ※ 30 September 2019       paper accepted ※ 10 October 2019       issue date ※ 30 August 2020  
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MOPHA173 Graphical User Interface Programming Challenges Moving Beyond Java Swing and JavaFX 637
 
  • S. Bart Pedersen, S. Jackson
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
 
  Oracle, the owner of Java, announced in 2018 that they would stop supporting their Swing and JavaFX technologies within the next decade. These technologies have fulfilled the graphical user interface (GUI) needs of CERN accelerator operation for over 2 decades, but their impending eradication has triggered an initiative to choose alternative technologies to develop future GUIs. Hundreds of existing applications will also need to be migrated or rewritten. The challenges to replace Java GUIs are numerous. The programmers will have to adapt and be retrained. The performance of the new GUI technologies will have to be at least as performant as the existing Java technologies. The programming environment, code versioning, dependency management and documentation will all need to be considered. This paper provides an overview of research comparing candidate GUI technologies and explains the selection of two main language families as possible replacements for Swing and JavaFX: Web applications (combining Java/JavaScript and web sockets) and Python PyQt (C++ based graphical library).  
poster icon Poster MOPHA173 [0.611 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2019-MOPHA173  
About • paper received ※ 30 September 2019       paper accepted ※ 10 October 2019       issue date ※ 30 August 2020  
Export • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)