Keyword: real-time
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MOBAUST01 News from ITER Controls - A Status Report controls, EPICS, network, software 1
 
  • A. Wallander, L. Abadie, F. Di Maio, B. Evrard, J-M. Fourneron, H.K. Gulati, C. Hansalia, J.Y. Journeaux, C.S. Kim, W.-D. Klotz, K. Mahajan, P. Makijarvi, Y. Matsumoto, S. Pande, S. Simrock, D. Stepanov, N. Utzel, A. Vergara-Fernandez, A. Winter, I. Yonekawa
    ITER Organization, St. Paul lez Durance, France
 
  Construction of ITER has started at the Cadarache site in southern France. The first buildings are taking shape and more than 60 % of the in-kind procurement has been committed by the seven ITER member states (China, Europe, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and Unites States). The design and manufacturing of the main components of the machine is now underway all over the world. Each of these components comes with a local control system, which must be integrated in the central control system. The control group at ITER has developed two products to facilitate this; the plant control design handbook (PCDH) and the control, data access and communication (CODAC) core system. PCDH is a document which prescribes the technologies and methods to be used in developing the local control system and sets the rules applicable to the in-kind procurements. CODAC core system is a software package, distributed to all in-kind procurement developers, which implements the PCDH and facilitates the compliance of the local control system. In parallel, the ITER control group is proceeding with the design of the central control system to allow fully integrated and automated operation of ITER. In this paper we report on the progress of design, technology choices and discuss justifications of those choices. We also report on the results of some pilot projects aiming at validating the design and technologies.  
slides icon Slides MOBAUST01 [4.238 MB]  
 
MOBAUST03 The MedAustron Accelerator Control System controls, operation, interface, timing 9
 
  • J. Gutleber, M. Benedikt
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
  • A.B. Brett, A. Fabich, M. Marchhart, R. Moser, M. Thonke, C. Torcato de Matos
    EBG MedAustron, Wr. Neustadt, Austria
  • J. Dedič
    Cosylab, Ljubljana, Slovenia
 
  This paper presents the architecture and design of the MedAustron particle accelerator control system. The facility is currently under construction in Wr. Neustadt, Austria. The accelerator and its control system are designed at CERN. Accelerator control systems for ion therapy applications are characterized by rich sets of configuration data, real-time reconfiguration needs and high stability requirements. The machine is operated according to a pulse-to-pulse modulation scheme and beams are described in terms of ion type, energy, beam dimensions, intensity and spill length. An irradiation session for a patient consists of a few hundred accelerator cycles over a time period of about two minutes. No two cycles within a session are equal and the dead-time between two cycles must be kept low. The control system is based on a multi-tier architecture with the aim to achieve a clear separation between front-end devices and their controllers. Off-the-shelf technologies are deployed wherever possible. In-house developments cover a main timing system, a light-weight layer to standardize operation and communication of front-end controllers, the control of the power converters and a procedure programming framework for automating high-level control and data analysis tasks. In order to be able to roll out a system within a predictable schedule, an "off-shoring" project management process was adopted: A frame agreement with an integrator covers the provision of skilled personnel that specifies and builds components together with the core team.  
slides icon Slides MOBAUST03 [7.483 MB]  
 
MODAULT01 Thirty Meter Telescope Adaptive Optics Computing Challenges FPGA, hardware, controls, operation 36
 
  • C. Boyer, B.L. Ellerbroek, L. Gilles, L. Wang
    TMT, Pasadena, California, USA
  • S. Browne
    The Optical Sciences Company, Anaheim, California, USA
  • G. Herriot, J.P. Veran
    HIA, Victoria, Canada
  • G.J. Hovey
    DRAO, Penticton, British Columbia, Canada
 
  The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will be used with Adaptive Optics (AO) systems to allow near diffraction-limited performance in the near-infrared and achieve the main TMT science goals. Adaptive optics systems reduce the effect of the atmospheric distortions by dynamically measuring the distortions with wavefront sensors, performing wavefront reconstruction with a Real Time Controller (RTC), and then compensating for the distortions with wavefront correctors. The requirements for the RTC subsystem of the TMT first light AO system will represent a significant advance over the current generation of astronomical AO control systems. Memory and processing requirements would be at least 2 orders of magnitude greater than the currently most powerful AO systems using conventional approaches, so that innovative wavefront reconstruction algorithms and new hardware approaches will be required. In this paper, we will first present the requirements and challenges for the RTC of the first light AO system, together with the algorithms that have been developed to reduce the memory and processing requirements, and then two possible hardware architectures based on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).  
slides icon Slides MODAULT01 [2.666 MB]  
 
MOPKN014 A Web Based Realtime Monitor on EPICS Data EPICS, monitoring, interface, status 121
 
  • L.F. Li, C.H. Wang
    IHEP Beijing, Beijing, People's Republic of China
 
  Funding: IHEP China
Monitoring systems such as EDM and CSS are extremely important in EPICS system. Most of them are based on client/server(C/S). This paper designs and implements a web based realtime monitoring system on EPICS data. This system is based on browser and server (B/S using Flex [1]). Through CAJ [2] interface, it fetches EPICS data including beam energy, beam current, lifetime and luminosity and so on. Then all data is displayed in a realtime chart in browser (IE or Firefox/Mozilla). The chart is refreshed every regular interval and can be zoomed and adjusted. Also, it provides data tips showing and full screen mode.
[1]http://www.adobe.com/products/flex.html
[2]M.Sekoranja, "Native Java Implement of channel access for Epics", 10th ICALEPCS, Geneva, Oct 2005, PO2.089-5.
 
poster icon Poster MOPKN014 [1.105 MB]  
 
MOPKS011 Beam Synchronous Data Acquisition for SwissFEL Test Injector controls, timing, data-acquisition, EPICS 180
 
  • B. Kalantari, T. Korhonen
    Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
 
  Funding: Paul Scherrer Institute
A 250 MeV injector facility at PSI has been constructed to study the scientific and technological challenges of the SwissFEL project. Since in such pulsed machines in principle every beam can have different characteristics, due to varying machine parameters and/or conditions, it is very crucial to be able to acquire and distinguish control system data from one pulse to the next. In this paper we describe the technique we have developed to perform beam synchronous data acquisition at 100 Hz rate. This has been particularly challenging since it has provided us with a reliable and real-time data acquisition method in a non real-time control system. We describe how this can be achieved by employing a powerful and flexible timing system with well defined interfaces to the control system.
 
poster icon Poster MOPKS011 [0.126 MB]  
 
MOPKS021 High-speed Data Handling Using Reflective Memory Thread for Tokamak Plasma Control controls, feedback, plasma, power-supply 203
 
  • S.Y. Park, S.H. Hahn, W.C. Kim
    NFRI, Daejon, Republic of Korea
  • R.D. Johnson, B.G. Penaflor, D.A. Piglowski, M.L. Walker
    GA, San Diego, California, USA
 
  The KSTAR plasma control system (PCS) is defined as a system consisting of electronic devices and control software that identifies and diagnoses various plasma parameters, calculates appropriate control signals to each actuator to keep the plasma sustained in the KSTAR operation regime. Based on the DIII-D PCS, the KSTAR PCS consists of a single box of multiprocess Linux system which can run up to 8 processes, and both digital and analog data acquisition methods are adapted for fast real-time data acquisition up to 20 kHz. The digital interface uses a well-known shared memory technology, the reflective memory (RFM), which can support data transmission up to 2Gbits/s. An RFM technology is adopted for interfacing the actuators, 11 PF power supplies and 1 IVC power supply, and the data acquisition system for plasma diagnostics. To handle the fast control of the RFM data transfer, the communication using the RFM with the actuators and diagnostics system is implemented as thread. The RFM thread sends commands like target current or voltage which is calculated by the PCS to the actuators area of RFM for plasma control and receives measured data by the magnet power supply. The RFM thread also provides the method for monitoring signal in real time by sharing data of diagnostics system. The RFM thread complete all data transfer within 50us so that data process can be completed within the fastest control cycle time of the PCS. This paper will describe the design, implementations, performances of RFM thread and applications to the tokamak plasma controls utilizing the technique.  
poster icon Poster MOPKS021 [1.745 MB]  
 
MOPKS023 An Overview of the Active Optics Control Strategy for the Thirty Meter Telescope controls, alignment, optics, operation 211
 
  • M.J. Sirota, G.Z. Angeli, D.G. MacMynowski
    TMT, Pasadena, California, USA
  • G.A. Chanan
    UCI, Irvine, California, USA
  • M.M. Colavita, C. Lindensmith, C. Shelton, M. Troy
    JPL, Pasadena, California, USA
  • T.S. Mast, J. Nelson
    UCSC, Santa Cruz, USA
  • P.M. Thompson
    STI, Hawthorne, USA
 
  Funding: This work was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
The primary (M1), secondary (M2) and tertiary (M3) mirrors of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), taken together, have over 10,000 degrees of freedom. The vast majority of these are associated with the 492 individual primary mirror segments. The individual segments are converted into the equivalent of a monolithic thirty meter primary mirror via the Alignment and Phasing System (APS) and the M1 Control System (M1CS). In this paper we first provide an introduction to the TMT. We then describe the overall optical alignment and control strategy for the TMT and follow up with additional descriptions of the M1CS and the APS. We conclude with a short description of the TMT error budget process and provide an example of error allocation and predicted performance for wind induced segment jitter.
 
poster icon Poster MOPKS023 [2.318 MB]  
 
MOPMS027 Fast Beam Current Transformer Software for the CERN Injector Complex software, hardware, GUI, timing 382
 
  • M. Andersen
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
 
  The Fast transfer-line BCTs in CERN injector complex are undergoing a complete consolidation to eradicate obsolete, maintenance intensive hardware. The corresponding low-level software has been designed to minimise the effect of identified error sources while allowing remote diagnostics and calibration facilities. This paper will present the front-end and expert application software with the results obtained.  
poster icon Poster MOPMS027 [1.223 MB]  
 
MOPMU035 Shape Controller Upgrades for the JET ITER-like Wall plasma, controls, operation, experiment 514
 
  • A. Neto, D. Alves, I.S. Carvalho
    IPFN, Lisbon, Portugal
  • G. De Tommasi, F. Maviglia
    CREATE, Napoli, Italy
  • R.C. Felton, P. McCullen
    EFDA-JET, Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom
  • P.J. Lomas, F. G. Rimini, A.V. Stephen, K-D. Zastrow
    CCFE, Culham, Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom
  • R. Vitelli
    Università di Roma II Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
 
  Funding: This work was supported by the European Communities under the contract of Association between EURATOM/IST and was carried out within the framework of the European Fusion Development Agreement.
The upgrade of JET to a new all-metal wall will pose a set of new challenges regarding machine operation and protection. One of the key problems is that the present way of terminating a pulse, upon the detection of a problem, is limited to a predefined set of global responses, tailored to maximise the likelihood of a safe plasma landing. With the new wall, these might conflict with the requirement of avoiding localised heat fluxes in the wall components. As a consequence, the new system will be capable of dynamically adapting its response behaviour, according to the experimental conditions at the time of the stop request and during the termination itself. Also in the context of the new ITER-like wall, two further upgrades were designed to be implemented in the shape controller architecture. The first will allow safer operation of the machine and consists of a power-supply current limit avoidance scheme, which provides a trade-off between the desired plasma shape and the current distribution between the relevant actuators. The second is aimed at an optimised operation of the machine, enabling an earlier formation of a special magnetic configuration where the last plasma closed flux surface is not defined by a physical limiter. The upgraded shape controller system, besides providing the new functionality, is expected to continue to provide the first line of defence against erroneous plasma position and current requests. This paper presents the required architectural changes to the JET plasma shape controller system.
 
poster icon Poster MOPMU035 [2.518 MB]  
 
TUDAUST02 Status Report of the FERMI@Elettra Control System controls, TANGO, electron, FEL 589
 
  • M. Lonza, A. Abrami, F. Asnicar, L. Battistello, A.I. Bogani, R. Borghes, V. Chenda, S. Cleva, A. Curri, M. De Marco, M.F. Dos Santos, G. Gaio, F. Giacuzzo, G. Kourousias, G. Passos, R. Passuello, L. Pivetta, M. Prica, M. Pugliese, C. Scafuri, G. Scalamera, G. Strangolino, D. Vittor, L. Zambon
    ELETTRA, Basovizza, Italy
 
  Funding: The work was supported in part by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under grants FIRB-RBAP045JF2 and FIRB-RBAP06AWK3
FERMI@Elettra is a new 4th-generation light source based on a seeded Free Electron Laser (FEL) presently under commissioning in Trieste, Italy. It is the first seeded FEL in the world designed to produce fundamental output wavelength down to 4 nm with High Gain Harmonic Generation (HGHG). Unlike storage ring based synchrotron light sources that are well known machines, the commissioning of a new-concept FEL is a complex and time consuming process consisting in thorough testing, understanding and optimization, in which a reliable and powerful control system is mandatory. In particular, integrated shot-by-shot beam manipulation capabilities and easy to use high level applications are crucial to allow an effective and smooth machine commissioning. The paper reports the status of the control system and the experience gained in two years of alternating construction and commissioning phases.
 
slides icon Slides TUDAUST02 [8.064 MB]  
 
WEMAU004 Integrating EtherCAT Based IO into EPICS at Diamond EPICS, controls, Ethernet, Linux 662
 
  • R. Mercado, I.J. Gillingham, J. Rowland, K.G. Wilkinson
    Diamond, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
 
  Diamond Light Source is actively investigating the use of EtherCAT-based Remote I/O modules for the next phase of photon beamline construction. Ethernet-based I/O in general is attractive, because of reduced equipment footprint, flexible configuration and reduced cabling. EtherCAT offers, in addition, the possibility of using inexpensive Ethernet hardware, off-the-shelf components with a throughput comparable to current VME based solutions. This paper presents the work to integrate EtherCAT-based I/O to the EPICS control system, listing platform decisions, requirement considerations and software design, and discussing the use of real-time pre-emptive Linux extensions to support high-rate devices that require deterministic sampling.  
slides icon Slides WEMAU004 [0.057 MB]  
poster icon Poster WEMAU004 [0.925 MB]  
 
WEPMN008 Function Generation and Regulation Libraries and their Application to the Control of the New Main Power Converter (POPS) at the CERN CPS controls, software, simulation, Linux 886
 
  • Q. King, S.T. Page, H. Thiesen
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
  • M. Veenstra
    EBG MedAustron, Wr. Neustadt, Austria
 
  Power converter control for the LHC is based on an embedded control computer called a Function Generator/Controller (FGC). Every converter includes an FGC with responsibility for the generation of the reference current as a function of time and the regulation of the circuit current, as well as control of the converter state. With many new converter controls software classes in development it was decided to generalise several key components of the FGC software in the form of C libraries: function generation in libfg, regulation, limits and simulation in libreg and DCCT, ADC and DAC calibration in libcal. These libraries were first used in the software class dedicated to controlling the new 60MW main power converter (POPS) at the CERN CPS where regulation of both magnetic field and circuit current is supported. This paper reports on the functionality provided by each library and in particular libfg and libreg. The libraries are already being used by software classes in development for the next generation FGC for Linac4 converters, as well as the CERN SPS converter controls (MUGEF) and MedAustron converter regulation board (CRB).  
poster icon Poster WEPMN008 [3.304 MB]  
 
WEPMN014 The Software and Hardware Architectural Design of the Vessel Thermal Map Real-Time System in JET plasma, Linux, controls, network 905
 
  • D. Alves, A. Neto, D.F. Valcárcel
    IPFN, Lisbon, Portugal
  • G. Arnoux, P. Card, S. Devaux, R.C. Felton, A. Goodyear, D. Kinna, P.J. Lomas, P. McCullen, A.V. Stephen, K-D. Zastrow
    CCFE, Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom
  • S. Jachmich
    RMA, Brussels, Belgium
 
  The installation of ITER-relevant materials for the plasma facing components (PFCs) in the Joint European Torus (JET) is expected to have a strong impact on the operation and protection of the experiment. In particular, the use of all-beryllium tiles, which deteriorate at a substantially lower temperature than the formerly installed CFC tiles, imposes strict thermal restrictions on the PFCs during operation. Prompt and precise responses are therefore required whenever anomalous temperatures are detected. The new Vessel Thermal Map (VTM) real-time application collects the temperature measurements provided by dedicated pyrometers and Infra-Red (IR) cameras, groups them according to spatial location and probable offending heat source and raises alarms that will trigger appropriate protective responses. In the context of JET's global scheme for the protection of the new wall, the system is required to run on a 10 millisecond cycle communicating with other systems through the Real-Time Data Network (RTDN). In order to meet these requirements a Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solution has been adopted based on standard x86 multi-core technology, Linux and the Multi-threaded Application Real-Time executor (MARTe) software framework. This paper presents an overview of the system with particular technical focus on the configuration of its real-time capability and the benefits of the modular development approach and advanced tools provided by the MARTe framework.
See the Appendix of F. Romanelli et al., Proceedings of the 23rd IAEA Fusion Energy Conference 2010, Daejeon, Korea
 
poster icon Poster WEPMN014 [5.306 MB]  
 
WEPMN015 Timing-system Solution for MedAustron; Real-time Event and Data Distribution Network timing, controls, software, ion 909
 
  • R. Štefanič, J. Dedič, R. Tavčar
    Cosylab, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • J. Gutleber
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
  • R. Moser
    EBG MedAustron, Wr. Neustadt, Austria
 
  MedAustron is an ion beam cancer therapy and research centre currently under construction in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. This facility features a synchrotron particle accelerator for light ions. A timing system is being developed for that class of accelerators targeted at clinical use as a product of close collaboration between MedAustron and Cosylab. We redesignedμResearch Finland transport layer's FPGA firmware, extending its capabilities to address specific requirements of the machine to come to a generic real-time broadcast network for coordinating actions of a compact, pulse-to-pulse modulation based particle accelerator. One such requirement is the need to support for configurable responses to timing events on the receiver side. The system comes with National Instruments LabView based software support, ready to be integrated into the PXI based front-end controllers. This paper explains the design process from initial requirements refinement to technology choice, architectural design and implementation. It elaborates the main characteristics of the accelerator that the timing system has to address, such as support for concurrently operating partitions, real-time and non real-time data transport needs and flexible configuration schemes for real-time response to timing event reception. Finally, the architectural overview is given, with the main components explained in due detail.  
poster icon Poster WEPMN015 [0.800 MB]  
 
WEPMN016 Synchronously Driven Power Converter Controller Solution for MedAustron timing, interface, controls, FPGA 912
 
  • L. Šepetavc, J. Dedič, R. Tavčar
    Cosylab, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • J. Gutleber
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
  • R. Moser
    EBG MedAustron, Wr. Neustadt, Austria
 
  MedAustron is an ion beam cancer therapy and research centre currently under construction in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. This facility features a synchrotron particle accelerator for light ions. Cosylab is closely working together with MedAustron on the development of a power converter controller (PCC) for the 260 deployed converters. The majority are voltage sources that are regulated in real-time via digital signal processor (DSP) boards. The in-house developed PCC operates the DSP boards remotely, via real-time fiber optic links. A single PCC will control up to 30 power converters that deliver power to magnets used for focusing and steering particle beams. Outputs of all PCCs must be synchronized within a time frame of at most 1 microsecond, which is achieved by integration with the timing system. This pulse-to-pulse modulation machine requires different waveforms for each beam generation cycle. Dead times between cycles must be kept low, therefore the PCC is reconfigured during beam generation. The system is based on a PXI platform from National Instruments running LabVIEW Real-Time. An in-house developed generic real-time optical link connects the PCCs to custom developed front-end devices. These FPGA-based hardware components facilitate integration with different types of power converters. All PCCs are integrated within the SIMATIC WinCC OA SCADA system which coordinates and supervises their operation. This paper describes the overall system architecture, its main components, challenges we faced and the technical solutions.  
poster icon Poster WEPMN016 [0.695 MB]  
 
WEPMN020 New Developments on Tore Supra Data Acquisition Units Linux, data-acquisition, target, controls 922
 
  • F. Leroux, G. Caulier, L. Ducobu, M. Goniche
    Association EURATOM-CEA, St Paul Lez Durance, France
  • G. Antar
    American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
 
  Tore Supra data acquisition system (DAS) was designed in the early 1980s and has considerably evolved since then. Three generations of data acquisition units still coexist: Multibus, VME, and PCI bus system. The second generation, VME bus system, running LynxOS real-time operating system (OS) is diskless. The third generation, PCI bus system, allows to perform extensive data acquisition for infrared and visible video cameras that produce large amounts of data to handle. Nevertheless, this third generation was up to now provided with an hard drive and a non real-time operating system Microsoft Windows. Diskless system is a better solution for reliability and maintainability as they share common resources like kernel and file system. Moreover, open source real-time OS is now available which provide free and convenient solutions for DAS. As a result, it was decided to explore an alternative solution based on an open source OS with a diskless system for the fourth generation. In 2010, Linux distributions for VME bus and PCI bus systems have been evaluated and compared to LynxOS. Currently, Linux OS is fairly mature to be used on DAS with pre-emptive and real time features on Motorola PowerPC, x86 and x86 multi-core architecture. The results allowed to choose a Linux version for VME and PC platform for DAS on Tore Supra. In 2011, the Tore Supra DAS dedicated software was ported on a Linux diskless PCI platform. The new generation was successfully tested during real plasma experiment on one diagnostic. The new diagnostics for Tore Supra will be developed with this new set up.  
poster icon Poster WEPMN020 [0.399 MB]  
 
WEPMN025 A New Fast Triggerless Acquisition System For Large Detector Arrays detector, FPGA, controls, experiment 935
 
  • P. Mutti, M. Jentschel, J. Ratel, F. Rey, E. Ruiz-Martinez, W. Urban
    ILL, Grenoble, France
 
  Presently a common characteristic trend in low and medium energy nuclear physics is to develop more complex detector systems to form multi-detector arrays. The main objective of such an elaborated set-up is to obtain comprehensive information about the products of all reactions. State-of-art γ-ray spectroscopy requires nowadays the use of large arrays of HPGe detectors often coupled with anti-Compton active shielding to reduce the ambient background. In view of this complexity, the front-end electronics must provide precise information about energy, time and possibly pulse shape. The large multiplicity of the detection system requires the capability to process the multitude of signals from many detectors, fast processing and very high throughput of more that 106 data words/sec. The possibility to handle such a complex system using traditional analogue electronics has shown rapidly its limitation due, first of all, to the non negligible cost per channel and, moreover, to the signal degradation associated to complex analogue path. Nowadays, digital pulse processing systems are available, with performances, in terms of timing and energy resolution, equal when not better than the corresponding analogue ones for a fraction of the cost per channel. The presented system uses a combination of a 15-bit 100 MS/s digitizer with a PowerPC-based VME single board computer. Real-time processing algorithms have been developed to handle total event rates of more than 1 MHz, providing on-line display for single and coincidence events.  
poster icon Poster WEPMN025 [15.172 MB]  
 
WEPMN036 Comparative Analysis of EPICS IOC and MARTe for the Development of a Hard Real-Time Control Application EPICS, controls, framework, software 961
 
  • A. Barbalace, A. Luchetta, G. Manduchi, C. Taliercio
    Consorzio RFX, Associazione Euratom-ENEA sulla Fusione, Padova, Italy
  • B. Carvalho, D.F. Valcárcel
    IPFN, Lisbon, Portugal
 
  EPICS is used worldwide to build distributed control systems for scientific experiments. The EPICS software suite is based around the Channel Access (CA) network protocol that allows the communication of different EPICS clients and servers in a distributed architecture. Servers are called Input/Output Controllers (IOCs) and perform real-world I/O or local control tasks. EPICS IOCs were originally designed for VxWorks to meet the demanding real-time requirements of control algorithms and have lately been ported to different operating systems. The MARTe framework has recently been adopted to develop an increasing number of hard real-time systems in different fusion experiments. MARTe is a software library that allows the rapid and modular development of stand-alone hard real-time control applications on different operating systems. MARTe has been created to be portable and during the last years it has evolved to follow the multicore evolution. In this paper we review several implementation differences between EPICS IOC and MARTe. We dissect their internal data structures and synchronization mechanisms to understand what happens behind the scenes. Differences in the component based approach and in the concurrent model of computation in EPICS IOC and MARTe are explained. Such differences lead to distinct time models in the computational blocks and distinct real-time capabilities of the two frameworks that a developer must be aware of.  
poster icon Poster WEPMN036 [2.406 MB]  
 
WEPMN038 A Combined On-line Acoustic Flowmeter and Fluorocarbon Coolant Mixture Analyzer for the ATLAS Silicon Tracker software, controls, detector, database 969
 
  • A. Bitadze, R.L. Bates
    University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
  • M. Battistin, S. Berry, P. Bonneau, J. Botelho-Direito, B. Di Girolamo, J. Godlewski, E. Perez-Rodriguez, L. Zwalinski
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
  • N. Bousson, G.D. Hallewell, M. Mathieu, A. Rozanov
    CNRS/CPT, Marseille, France
  • R. Boyd
    University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA
  • M. Doubek, V. Vacek, M. Vitek
    Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Prague, Czech Republic
  • K. Egorov
    Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
  • S. Katunin
    PNPI, Gatchina, Leningrad District, Russia
  • S. McMahon
    STFC/RAL/ASTeC, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, United Kingdom
  • K. Nagai
    University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Pure and Applied Sciences,, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
 
  An upgrade to the ATLAS silicon tracker cooling control system requires a change from C3F8 (molecular weight 188) coolant to a blend with 10-30% C2F6 (mw 138) to reduce the evaporation temperature and better protect the silicon from cumulative radiation damage at LHC. Central to this upgrade an acoustic instrument for measurement of C3F8/C2F6 mixture and flow has been developed. Sound velocity in a binary gas mixture at known temperature and pressure depends on the component concentrations. 50 kHz sound bursts are simultaneously sent via ultrasonic transceivers parallel and anti-parallel to the gas flow. A 20 MHz transit clock is started synchronous with burst transmission and stopped by over-threshold received sound pulses. Transit times in both directions, together with temperature and pressure, enter a FIFO memory 100 times/second. Gas mixture is continuously analyzed using PVSS-II, by comparison of average sound velocity in both directions with stored velocity-mixture look-up tables. Flow is calculated from the difference in sound velocity in the two directions. In future versions these calculations may be made in a micro-controller. The instrument has demonstrated a resolution of <0.3% for C3F8/C2F6 mixtures with ~20%C2F6, with simultaneous flow resolution of ~0.1% of F.S. Higher precision is possible: a sensitivity of ~0.005% to leaks of C3F8 into the ATLAS pixel detector nitrogen envelope (mw difference 156) has been seen. The instrument has many applications, including analysis of hydrocarbons, mixtures for semi-conductor manufacture and anesthesia.  
 
WEPMS011 The Timing Master for the FAIR Accelerator Facility timing, FPGA, network, embedded 996
 
  • R. Bär, T. Fleck, M. Kreider, S. Mauro
    GSI, Darmstadt, Germany
 
  One central design feature of the FAIR accelerator complex is a high level of parallel beam operation, imposing ambitious demands on the timing and management of accelerator cycles. Several linear accelerators, synchrotrons, storage rings and beam lines have to be controlled and re-configured for each beam production chain on a pulse-to-pulse basis, with cycle lengths ranging from 20 ms to several hours. This implies initialization, synchronization of equipment on the time scale down to the ns level, interdependencies, multiple paths and contingency actions like emergency beam dump scenarios. The FAIR timing system will be based on White Rabbit [1] network technology, implementing a central Timing Master (TM) unit to orchestrate all machines. The TM is subdivided into separate functional blocks: the Clock Master, which deals with time and clock sources and their distribution over WR, the Management Master, which administrates all WR timing receivers, and the Data Master, which schedules and coordinates machine instructions and broadcasts them over the WR network. The TM triggers equipment actions based on the transmitted execution time. Since latencies in the low μs range are required, this paper investigates the possibilities of parallelisation in programmable hardware and discusses the benefits to either a distributed or monolithic timing master architecture. The proposed FPGA based TM will meet said timing requirements while providing fast reaction to interlocks and internal events and offers parallel processing of multiple signals and state machines.
[1] J. Serrano, et al, "The White Rabbit Project", ICALEPCS 2009.
 
 
WEPMU018 Real-time Protection of the "ITER-like Wall at JET" FPGA, controls, plasma, network 1096
 
  • M.B. Jouve, C. Balorin
    Association EURATOM-CEA, St Paul Lez Durance, France
  • G. Arnoux, S. Devaux, D. Kinna, P.D. Thomas, K-D. Zastrow
    CCFE, Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom
  • P.J. Carvalho
    IPFN, Lisbon, Portugal
  • J. Veyret
    Sundance France, Matignon, France
 
  During the last JET tokamak shutdown a new ITER-Like Wall was installed using Tungsten and Beryllium materials. To ensure plasma facing component (PFC) integrity, the real-time protection of the wall has been upgraded through the project "Protection for the ITER-like Wall" (PIW). The choice has been made to work with 13 CCD robust analog cameras viewing the main areas of plasma wall interaction and to use regions of interest (ROI) for monitoring in real time the surface temperature of the PFCs. For each camera, ROIs will be set up pre-pulse and, during plasma operation, surface temperatures from these ROIs will be sent to the real time processing system for monitoring and eventually preventing damages on PFCs by modifying the plasma parameters. The video and the associated control system developed for this project is presented in this paper. The video is captured using PLEORA frame grabber and it is sent on GigE network to the real time processing system (RTPS) divided into a 'Real time processing unit' (RTPU), for surface temperature calculation, and the 'RTPU Host', for connection between RTPU and other systems. The RTPU design is based on commercial Xilinx Virtex5 FPGA boards with one board per camera and 2 boards per host. Programmed under Simulink using System generator blockset, the field programmable gate array (FPGA) can manage simultaneously up to 96 ROI defined pixel by pixel.  
poster icon Poster WEPMU018 [2.450 MB]  
 
THCHMUST02 Control and Test Software for IRAM Widex Correlator software, Linux, simulation, hardware 1240
 
  • S. Blanchet, D. Broguiere, P. Chavatte, F. Morel, A. Perrigouard, M. Torres
    IRAM, Saint Martin d'Heres, France
 
  IRAM is an international research institute for radio astronomy. It has designed a new correlator called WideX for the Plateau de Bure interferometer (an array of six 15-meter telescopes) in the French Alps. The device started its official service in February 2010. This correlator must be driven in real-time at 32 Hz for sending parameters and for data acquisition. With 3.67 million channels, distributed over 1792 dedicated chips, that produce a 1.87 Gbits/sec data output rate, the data acquisition and processing and also the automatic hardware-failure detection are big challenges for the software. This article presents the software that has been developed to drive and test the correlator. In particular it presents an innovative usage of a high-speed optical link, initially developed for the CERN ALICE experiment, associated with real-time Linux (RTAI) to achieve our goals.  
slides icon Slides THCHMUST02 [2.272 MB]  
 
THDAUST03 The FERMI@Elettra Distributed Real-time Framework Linux, controls, Ethernet, network 1267
 
  • L. Pivetta, G. Gaio, R. Passuello, G. Scalamera
    ELETTRA, Basovizza, Italy
 
  Funding: The work was supported in part by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under grants FIRB-RBAP045JF2 and FIRB-RBAP06AWK3
FERMI@Elettra is a Free Electron Laser (FEL) based on a 1.5 GeV linac. The pulsed operation of the accelerator and the necessity to characterize and control each electron bunch requires synchronous acquisition of the beam diagnostics together with the ability to drive actuators in real-time at the linac repetition rate. The Adeos/Xenomai real-time extensions have been adopted in order to add real-time capabilities to the Linux based control system computers running the Tango software. A software communication protocol based on gigabit Ethernet and known as Network Reflective Memory (NRM) has been developed to implement a shared memory across the whole control system, allowing computers to communicate in real-time. The NRM architecture, the real-time performance and the integration in the control system are described.
 
slides icon Slides THDAUST03 [0.490 MB]  
 
THDAULT06 MARTe Framework: a Middleware for Real-time Applications Development controls, framework, hardware, Linux 1277
 
  • A. Neto, D. Alves, B. Carvalho, P.J. Carvalho, H. Fernandes, D.F. Valcárcel
    IPFN, Lisbon, Portugal
  • A. Barbalace, G. Manduchi
    Consorzio RFX, Associazione Euratom-ENEA sulla Fusione, Padova, Italy
  • L. Boncagni
    ENEA C.R. Frascati, Frascati (Roma), Italy
  • G. De Tommasi
    CREATE, Napoli, Italy
  • P. McCullen, A.V. Stephen
    CCFE, Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom
  • F. Sartori
    F4E, Barcelona, Spain
  • R. Vitelli
    Università di Roma II Tor Vergata, Roma, Italy
  • L. Zabeo
    ITER Organization, St. Paul lez Durance, France
 
  Funding: This work was supported by the European Communities under the contract of Association between EURATOM/IST and was carried out within the framework of the European Fusion Development Agreement
The Multi-threaded Application Real-Time executor (MARTe) is a C++ framework that provides a development environment for the design and deployment of real-time applications, e.g. control systems. The kernel of MARTe comprises a set of data-driven independent blocks, connected using a shared bus. This modular design enforces a clear boundary between algorithms, hardware interaction and system configuration. The architecture, being multi-platform, facilitates the test and commissioning of new systems, enabling the execution of plant models in offline environments and with the hardware-in-the-loop, whilst also providing a set of non-intrusive introspection and logging facilities. Furthermore, applications can be developed in non real-time environments and deployed in a real-time operating system, using exactly the same code and configuration data. The framework is already being used in several fusion experiments, with control cycles ranging from 50 microseconds to 10 milliseconds exhibiting jitters of less than 2%, using VxWorks, RTAI or Linux. Codes can also be developed and executed in Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X. This paper discusses the main design concepts of MARTe, in particular the architectural choices which enabled the combination of real-time accuracy, performance and robustness with complex and modular data driven applications.
 
slides icon Slides THDAULT06 [1.535 MB]  
 
FRAAULT04 Centralised Coordinated Control to Protect the JET ITER-like Wall. controls, plasma, diagnostics, operation 1293
 
  • A.V. Stephen, G. Arnoux, T. Budd, P. Card, R.C. Felton, A. Goodyear, J. Harling, D. Kinna, P.J. Lomas, P. McCullen, P.D. Thomas, I.D. Young, K-D. Zastrow
    CCFE, Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom
  • D. Alves, D.F. Valcárcel
    IST, Lisboa, Portugal
  • S. Devaux
    MPI/IPP, Garching, Germany
  • S. Jachmich
    RMA, Brussels, Belgium
  • A. Neto
    IPFN, Lisbon, Portugal
 
  Funding: This work was carried out within the framework of the European Fusion Development Agreement. This work was also part-funded by the RCUK Energy Programme under grant EP/I501045.
The JET ITER-like wall project replaces the first wall carbon fibre composite tiles with beryllium and tungsten tiles which should have improved fuel retention characteristics but are less thermally robust. An enhanced protection system using new control and diagnostic systems has been designed which can modify the pre-planned experimental control to protect the new wall. Key design challenges were to extend the Level-1 supervisory control system to allow configurable responses to thermal problems to be defined without introducing excessive complexity, and to integrate the new functionality with existing control and protection systems efficiently and reliably. Alarms are generated by the vessel thermal map (VTM) system if infra-red camera measurements of tile temperatures are too high and by the plasma wall load system (WALLS) if component power limits are exceeded. The design introduces two new concepts: local protection, which inhibits individual heating components but allows the discharge to proceed, and stop responses, which allow highly configurable early termination of the pulse in the safest way for the plasma conditions and type of alarm. These are implemented via the new real-time protection system (RTPS), a centralised controller which responds to the VTM and WALLS alarms by providing override commands to the plasma shape, current, density and heating controllers. This paper describes the design and implementation of the RTPS system which is built with the Multithreaded Application Real-Time executor (MARTe) and will present results from initial operations.
 
slides icon Slides FRAAULT04 [2.276 MB]  
 
FRBHAULT01 Feed-forward in the LHC feedback, software, controls, database 1302
 
  • M. Pereira, X. Buffat, K. Fuchsberger, M. Lamont, G.J. Müller, S. Redaelli, R.J. Steinhagen, J. Wenninger
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
 
  The LHC operational cycle is comprised of several phases such as the ramp, the squeeze and stable beams. During the ramp and squeeze in particular, it has been observed that the behaviour of key LHC beam parameters such as tune, orbit and chromaticity are highly reproducible from fill to fill. To reduced the reliance on the crucial feedback systems, it was decided to perform fill-to-fill feed-forward corrections. The LHC feed-forward application was developed to ease the introduction of corrections to the operational settings. It retrieves the feedback system's corrections from the logging database and applies appropriate corrections to the ramp and squeeze settings. The LHC Feed-Forward software has been used during LHC commissioning and tune and orbit corrections during ramp have been successfully applied. As a result, the required real-time corrections for the above parameters have been reduced to a minimum.  
slides icon Slides FRBHAULT01 [0.961 MB]  
 
FRBHAULT04 Commissioning of the FERMI@Elettra Fast Trajectory Feedback feedback, controls, linac, Ethernet 1314
 
  • G. Gaio, M. Lonza, R. Passuello, L. Pivetta, G. Strangolino
    ELETTRA, Basovizza, Italy
 
  Funding: The work was supported in part by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under grants FIRB-RBAP045JF2 and FIRB-RBAP06AWK3
FERMI@Elettra is a new 4th-generation light source based on a single pass Free Electron Laser (FEL). In order to ensure the feasibility of the free electron lasing and the quality of the produced photon beam, a high degree of stability is required for the main parameters of the electron beam. For this reason a flexible real-time feedback framework integrated in the control system has been developed. The first implemented bunch-by-bunch feedback loop controls the beam trajectory. The measurements of the beam position and the corrector magnet settings are synchronized to the 50 Hz linac repetition rate by means of the real-time framework. The feedback system implementation, the control algorithms and preliminary close loop results are presented.
 
slides icon Slides FRBHAULT04 [2.864 MB]  
 
FRBHMUST02 Towards High Performance Processing in Modern Java Based Control Systems monitoring, controls, software, distributed 1322
 
  • M. Misiowiec, W. Buczak, M. Buttner
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
 
  CERN controls software is often developed on Java foundation. Some systems carry out a combination of data, network and processor intensive tasks within strict time limits. Hence, there is a demand for high performing, quasi real time solutions. Extensive prototyping of the new CERN monitoring and alarm software required us to address such expectations. The system must handle dozens of thousands of data samples every second, along its three tiers, applying complex computations throughout. To accomplish the goal, a deep understanding of multithreading, memory management and interprocess communication was required. There are unexpected traps hidden behind an excessive use of 64 bit memory or severe impact on the processing flow of modern garbage collectors, including the state of the art Oracle GarbageFirst. Tuning JVM configuration significantly affects the execution of the code. Even more important is the amount of threads and the data structures used between them. Accurately dividing work into independent tasks might boost system performance. Thorough profiling with dedicated tools helped understand the bottlenecks and choose algorithmically optimal solutions. Different virtual machines were tested, in a variety of setups and garbage collection options. The overall work provided for discovering actual hard limits of the whole setup. We present this process of architecting a challenging system in view of the characteristics and limitations of the contemporary Java runtime environment.
http://cern.ch/marekm/icalepcs.html
 
slides icon Slides FRBHMUST02 [4.514 MB]