Author: Salvachua, B.
Paper Title Page
WEPV016 The Automatic LHC Collimator Beam-Based Alignment Software Package 659
 
  • G. Azzopardi, B. Salvachua
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
  • G. Valentino
    University of Malta, Information and Communication Technology, Msida, Malta
 
  The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN makes use of a complex collimation system to protect its sensitive equipment from unavoidable beam losses. The collimators are positioned around the beam respecting a strict transverse hierarchy. The position of each collimator is determined following a beam-based alignment technique which determines the required jaw settings for optimum performance. During the LHC Run 2 (2015-2018), a new automatic alignment software package was developed and used for collimator alignments throughout 2018*. This paper discusses the usability and flexibility of this new package describing the implementation in detail, as well as the latest improvements and features in preparation for Run 3 starting in 2022. The automation has already successfully decreased the alignment time by 70% in 2018** and this paper explores how to further exploit this software package. Its implementation provides a solid foundation to automatically align any new collimation configurations in the future, as well as allows for further analysis and upgrade of its individual modules.
*G.Azzopardi, et al"Software Architecture for Automatic LHC Collimator Alignment using ML",ICALEPCS19.
**G.Azzopardi, et al"Operational Results on the Fully-Automatic LHC Collimator Alignment",PRAB19.
 
poster icon Poster WEPV016 [0.443 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2021-WEPV016  
About • Received ※ 07 October 2021       Revised ※ 22 October 2021       Accepted ※ 22 December 2021       Issue date ※ 26 December 2021
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)  
 
THPV012 LHC Collimation Controls System for Run III Operation 888
 
  • G. Azzopardi, M. Di Castro, S. Redaelli, B. Salvachua, M. Solfaroli Camillocci
    CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
  • G. Valentino
    University of Malta, Information and Communication Technology, Msida, Malta
 
  The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collimation system is designed to protect the machine against unavoidable beam losses. The collimation system for the LHC Run 3, starting in 2022, consists of more than 100 movable collimators located along the 27 km long ring and in the transfer lines. The cleaning performance and machine protection role of the system critically depend on the accurate positioning of the collimator jaws. The collimation control system in place enables remote control and appropriate diagnostics of the relevant parameters. This ensures that the collimators dynamically follow optimum settings in all phases of the LHC operational cycle. In this paper, an overview of the top-level software tools available for collimation control from the control room is given. These tools range from collimator alignment applications to generation tools for collimator settings, as well as collimator scans, settings checks and machine protection sequences. Amongst these tools the key upgrades and newly introduced tools for the Run 3 are presented.  
poster icon Poster THPV012 [5.521 MB]  
DOI • reference for this paper ※ https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2021-THPV012  
About • Received ※ 07 October 2021       Revised ※ 25 October 2021       Accepted ※ 16 December 2021       Issue date ※ 01 March 2022
Cite • reference for this paper using ※ BibTeX, ※ LaTeX, ※ Text/Word, ※ RIS, ※ EndNote (xml)