Classical Topics

Control Software: Applications and Tools

Paper Title Page
MOZ01 Infrastructure Monitoring System for the Advanced Photon Source Control System 19
 
  • D. E.R. Quock, N. D. Arnold, A. N. Johnson
    ANL, Argonne, Illinois
 
  An Infrastructure Monitoring System has been developed at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) to provide immediate notification to the Controls Group on-call staff in the event of failure of critical controls hardware components or software processes. Approximately 6,000 critical controls components and processes have been identified, many of which can be readily monitored through EPICS records. Nagios , an open-source host, service, and network monitoring program, has been interfaced to EPICS Channel Access monitoring tools to provide historical tracking of controls infrastructure events, email, and pager notifications to on-call staff, and Internet-accessible status displays. Two methods have been evaluated for checking EPICS alarm status data: a modified version of Mauro Giacchini’s NAL plug-in for Nagios, and a Perl script using the Channel Access Perl library recently developed by Andrew Johnson. A Personal Device Assistant-viewable Web page is also generated independently of Nagios that provides customized links to the controls database IRMIS . Performance studies have validated the reliability of Nagios and the Perl Channel Access software.

* www.nagios.org
** www.lnl.infn.it/~epics/NAL.html
*** www.aps.anl.gov/epics/irmis

 
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MOZ02 The Concept of EMBL Beamline Control at Petra III 22
 
  • U. R. Ristau, M. DiCastro, S. Fiedler, A. Pazos
    EMBL, Hamburg
  • P. Duval
    DESY, Hamburg
 
  The EMBL is located at the DESY site in Hamburg and operates 7 beam lines at the DORIS III synchrotron. Currently the EMBL Hamburg constructs three new beam lines at the new PETRA III synchrotron. In the past the level of beam line automation is significantly increased. Control system tasks are changed to more data through put, faster reaction times and require more flexibility. The control electronic has to allow fast feedbacks and precise data synchronization. Sample changer offer higher speed and sample capacity. The transport of videos and the huge amount of experimental data via the control system requires networks with large bandwidth and high efficient control system transport protocols. The EMBL has chosen TINE as beam line control system. TINE features like the multi cast option and the efficient TINE transport protocol help to minimize the network load. The control electronic will be the real time PLC control EtherCat for motor control and data acquisition. Fast data acquisition will be performed with FPGA and PXI electronic. Presented will be the beam line control concept, the control electronic layout and the first finished applications.  
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MOZ03 Beam Emittance Measurement Tool for CEBAF Operations 25
 
  • P. Chevtsov, M. G. Tiefenback
    Jefferson Lab, Newport News, Virginia
 
  A new software tool was created at Jefferson Lab to measure the emittance of the CEBAF electron beams. The tool consists of device control and data analysis applications. The device control application handles the work of wire scanners and writes their measurement results as well as the information about accelerator settings during these measurements into wire scanner data files. The data analysis application reads these files and calculates the beam emittance on the basis of a wire scanner data processing model. Both applications are computer platform independent but are mostly used on LINUX PCs recently installed in the accelerator control room. The new tool significantly simplifies beam emittance measurement procedures for accelerator operations and contributes to a very high availability of the CEBAF machine for the nuclear physics program at Jefferson Lab.  
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MOZ04 cMsg - A Publish/Subscribe Interprocess Communication Package 28
 
  • E. J. Wolin, D. Abbott, V. H. Gyurjyan, E. Jastrzembski, D. Lawrence, C. Timmer
    Jefferson Lab, Newport News, Virginia
  • G. Heyes
    JLAB, Newport News, Virginia
 
  Publish/subscribe message passing is an extremely simple, flexible, and powerful interprocess communication paradigm. It is widely used in industry, but not nearly so in HENP, perhaps due to the cost of commercial implementations. cMsg, developed at Jefferson Lab in the US, contains a full-featured pub/sub interprocess communication package that is simple to install and use. It is very efficient, and implements both point-to-point and pub/sub communications, server redundancy, hot server failover, and a server discovery service. In addition, for developers cMsg provides a framework within which one can deploy multiple underlying communication packages that do not necessarily need to implement the full pub/sub paradigm. This allows for unification of all communication in a control system under a single API, shortens development time, and allows for simple upgrade or replacement of underlying communication packages and protocols.  
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MOW01 STARS .NET Interface for Windows CE 31
 
  • T. Kosuge
    KEK, Ibaraki
 
  STARS(Simple Transmission and Retrieval System) is a message transferring software for small scale control systems with TCP/IP sockets and it is installed various control system (Beamline control system, Access control system of experimental hall, Key handling system etc.) at the Photon Factory. This time, we developed STARS .NET interface library for Windows CE with remodeling original STARS .NET interface. Development of STARS GUI client or I/O client becomes very easy with the library. Recently, we tested the library on HP iPAQ 112 with simple GUI program (written in C#) and got satisfactory result. We will describe detail of STARS .NET interface for Windows CE and examples of application.  
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MOW02 A .NET Assembly for EPICS Simple Channel Access 34
 
  • CA. Timossi, H. Nishimura
    LBNL, Berkeley, California
 
  The Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is starting a project to re-write the control room operator interface software using the .NET platform and the C# programming language*. Simple Channel Access(SCA), developed at LBNL to simplify client access to EPICS**, will be replaced with a new .NET assembly, ScaNET, that enables .NET applications to access accelerator data.

*ECMA-334 and ISO/IEC 23270
**Dalesio, et al. "The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System Architecture," submitted to ICALEPCS, Berlin, Germany, Oct. 18-22, 1993.

 
MOW03 Integration of Renovated Networking Middleware into a Running Control System Environment 37
 
  • U. Krause, L. Hechler, K. Herlo, K. Höppner, P. Kainberger, S. Matthies, G. Schwarz
    GSI, Darmstadt
 
  Currently the proprietary networking middleware in the GSI control system is replaced by a CORBA based re-design. Rebuilding all controls components is out of scope, so existing applications as well as device specific front-end software still have to be used. The renovated middle layer has to fit between the former applications device access interface and the front-end framework. Providing similar functionality as before was a major design aspect therefore. However, the new outline, targeting more flexibility and clearity, did not completely provide the established functionality from the beginning. Several extensions, had to be added which on the other hand lead to additional capabilities for future usage of the system.  
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MOW04 The Database of the VEPP-4 Accelerating Facility Parameters 40
 
  • S. E. Karnaev, E. A. Simonov
    BINP SB RAS, Novosibirsk
  • E. V. Goman, O. A. Plotnikova
    BINP, Novosibirsk
 
  The new PostgreSQL database is developed for systematization and unification of the data archiving and observation at the VEPP-4 facility. About three thousands parameters are set and checked for the VEPP-4 control. The current values are read from the control and measuring electronics and stored into the many files with different time of storing. The storing intervals vary from one second for the pulse systems to several minutes for the slowly changing parameters. Parameters are transfer to the database as soon as they are renewed in the source files. Twelve independent processes running under Linux provide the permanent data transfer from the files with current values to the database. The graphical interface is developed for user’s access to the database. It provides observation of the stored data in graphical or textual form and monitoring of the current parameter values. The interface allows us to observe any collection of parameters in a single or in different windows for any period of time.

* 4th International Workshop on Personal Computers and Particle Accelerator Controls (PCaPAC'02), 14-17 October 2002, Frascati(RM), Italy

 
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TUY01 Development of Data Logging and Display System, MyDAQ2 55
 
  • T. Hirono, T. Matsushita, T. Ohata, A. Yamashita
    JASRI/SPring-8, Hyogo-ken
 
  MyDAQ* is a simple data logging and display system using a relational database. It is “a chart recorder on the web” logging data like temperature or pulse motor status. MyDAQ receives data from data taking PCs through the network, stores them to the database with timestamp and displays them as a time-chart on browser. Client users are only required to add small TCP socket sequence to their data taking program. SQL programming or proprietary client software is not required. We upgraded MyDAQ to MyDAQ2. The main features of the upgrades were (1)support of binary and text data, (2)asynchronous network communication, (3)data management functions, (4)user friendly data viewer and (5)inclusion of an installer. MyDAQ2 newly supports various types of data and provides easier access to data. For example, users can store camera image or waveform spectrum with comments in text and browse images in thumbnail or download spectrum data as a file from the web. We adopted MyDAQ2 as one of user interfaces of the newly introducing common data storage in SPring-8 beamlines. In this presentation, we shows detailed features of MyDAQ2 and discuss performance of the new data storage with MyDAQ2.

* A. Yamashita and T. Ohata, “MyDAQ, a Simple Data Logging and Display Server”, Proc. of PCaPAC’05, Hayama, Japan, 2005

 
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TUY03 Integrating Firewire Cameras into the EPICS Control System 61
 
  • M. Dach, P. Jałocha
    PSI, Villigen
 
  The technical challenge in many physics experiments is to capture and process images. There are many solutions in this domain. One which seems to be cost effective with high performance, refers to firewire cameras. This type of cameras are easily connected with the PCs by mean of the firewire bus. We present a concrete solution about firewire cameras' integration into the EPICS control system. Our solution allows for image capturing, processing and image distribution using Channel Access and HTTP protocols.  
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TUY04 TINE Video System – A Modular, Well-defined, Component-based and Interoperable TV System Undergoing a Redesign 64
 
  • S. Weisse
    DESY Zeuthen, Zeuthen
 
  In recent years, the usage of TV systems and optical readout at accelerator facilities has constantly been increasing. At the same time, the pace of vendor upgrades of industrial vision hardware has hardly slackened. Because image readout hardware is required to meet special criteria in accelerator physics, vastly different hardware systems are frequently used side by side. Given such circumstances it is not surprising that the imaging software needs to be changed, adapted and updated on a semi-permanent basis. Current TV systems cannot cope very well with rapid software and hardware changes. To improve this, a redesign of the current TINE Video System*, initiated at PITZ, was undertaken. Efforts are focused on an abstract, modular grabbing interface, dedicated software components, a well-defined Video Transport Layer and use of standard file formats where possible. This paper will show current, planned and possible software architectures as well as hardware support and outlines perspectives for near and far future. Although the current implementation is integrated into TINE control system, it is modular enough so that integration into other control systems can be considered.

* S. Weisse, P. Duval, G. Trowitzsch, M. Lomperski, "Status of a versatile Video System at PITZ, DESY-2 and EMBL Hamburg", Proceedings of the ICALEPCS 2007, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

 
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TUZ01 New TINE Java General Purpose Diagnostic Applications 67
 
  • J. Bobnar, I. Križnar
    Cosylab, Ljubljana
  • R. Bacher, P. Duval, M. Lomperski
    DESY, Hamburg
 
  One of the strengths of the TINE* control system is the ability to easily make ‘rich-client’ applications containing that programming and display logic which is designed to expedite and enhance the operator’s or physicist’s abilities to diagnose problems and correlate results. In particular there are a large number of ‘rich-client’, general purpose applications which offer extensive interactions with the TINE standard servers and subsystems. This includes the TINE archive system, alarm system, post-mortem system, and video system, as well as scope trace analysis, multi-channel analysis and general configuration management. Available now for many years, these diagnostic applications have recently been realized as pure java applications using ACOP** beans. All applications have been honed and refined based on extensive feedback from the application users. We offer here a description of these applications, some of the novel techniques used and focus on those ‘rich-client’ aspects which cannot be achieved by configuring ‘simple-clients’ based on displayer widgets.

* http://tine.desy.de
** http://cosylab.com/pub/acop/site

 
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TUZ02 AMS - Alarm Management System 70
 
  • M. R. Clausen, J. Hatje, M. Moeller, H. R. Rickens
    DESY, Hamburg
 
  Alarm management is a mandatory component of todays control systems. The widely distributed process controls for the x-ray free electron laser facility XFEL being build at DESY in Hamburg, Germany will increase the demands for a reliable and functional alarm management system. Todays alarm tools like the EPICS alarm handler may be used for alarm display but they lack management functionalities. The new alarm management system comprises all levels of alarm handling: Collection, store and forward, display as tables and trees, persistent store, archive, archive retrieval, filtering, actions behind filters and distributors. Distributors are issuing actions in the form of (JMS) messages, GSM-SMS or Email. The new alarm system is fully integrated into the CSS framework including views and configuration editors. Alarms as well as log messages are handled by a set of redundant ActiveMQ servers which implement the Java Message Service (JMS) specified by SUN. This paper will describe the whole alarm management system which is based on open source software and independent from control system specific implementations.  
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TUZ03 Control System Studio and the SNS Relational Database 71
 
  • J. D. Purcell, K.-U. Kasemir
    ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
 
  As the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) Project moves towards its goal of high reliability, better tools are required to enable operators and users quick and reliable access to relevant data. SNS is taking advantage of its single relational database and incorporating it in to different plug-ins for use with CSS. This paper describes some of the existing database related plug-ins along with the plans for future growth.  
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TUZ04 First Experiences with jddd for PETRA Vacuum Controls 74
 
  • E. Sombrowski, K. Rehlich
    DESY, Hamburg
 
  The commissioning of the rebuilt PETRA and the to be built XFEL accelerators at DESY, requires the creation of numerous new control panels. For a quick any easy creation of these panels the Java Doocs Data Display jddd [1] has been developed. jddd is a Java editor for designing and running control panels. It provides a rich set of ready-made components/widgets,e.g. status indicators, logic components to animate graphics and powerful plot components including online data analysis functionality. The panels are saved in an XML file format and kept in a centrally hosted subversion repository to allow proper bookkeeping and history tracking. Currently the PETRA vacuum controls are used as a real live test for jddd. This way the innovative concepts are being evaluated and the data access of multiple control systems, currently DOOCS, TINE and TANGO, can be optimized.

[1] E. Sombrowski, A. Petrosyan, K. Rehlich, P. Tege, "jddd: A Java Doocs Data Display for the XFEL", ICALEPCS'07, Knoxville, Tennessee, October 2007.

 
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TUP008 Network Analyser for the EPICS Channel Access Protocol 96
 
  • K. Žagar, A. Žagar
    Cosylab, Ljubljana
  • K. Furukawa
    KEK, Ibaraki
  • R. Rechenmacher
    Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois
 
  In this paper, we present a tool which allows capturing Channel Access (CA) traffic directly off the network and interpreting the contents with a graphical or textual user interface. The tool is the widely used Wireshark (former Ethereal) network capture and analysis application, for which we have implemented a plugin that parses (dissects) contents of CA network packets. The tool is freely and openly available for several operating systems, and we have built and tested the CA plugin for Windows, Linux and Darwin (Mac OS X). We first describe the Wireshark framework, followed by the steps needed to implement a dissector plugin. Then, we present the features and limitations of our CA dissector implementation. Afterwards, we explain how to install and use the Wireshark application and the CA dissector. Finally, we present some examples where we have found the tool to be useful.  
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TUP009 Control System Studio (CSS) Data Browser 99
 
  • K.-U. Kasemir
    ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
 
  The “Data Browser” is an interactive strip-charting and plotting program for both live and archived control system data. Implemented within the Eclipse-based Control System Studio (CSS) environment, it interfaces nicely with other CSS tools. Users can seamlessly access samples from various data sources. We describe the current features and discuss the benefits as well as difficulties that result from CSS/Eclipse.  
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TUP010 Buffer Manager Implementation for the FLASH Data Aquisition System 102
 
  • V. Rybnikov, A. Aghababyan, G. Grygiel, O. Hensler, R. Kammering, L. M. Petrosyan, K. Rehlich
    DESY, Hamburg
 
  The Free Electron Laser in Hamburg (FLASH) at DESY is a user facility. It produces laser light of short wavelengths from the extreme ultraviolet down to soft X-rays. To study, monitor and document the machine performance and parameters and also to collect the results of the experiment measurements a fast data acquisition (DAQ) system has been developed. A shared memory based buffer manager is the heart of the system. It arranges collected data as events for every linac short. All events can be read by different consumers simultaneously. Linac feedback and monitoring processes as well as experiment middle layer servers are typical clients of the buffer manager. Any client can also generate its own data and insert it into the same event or produce its own one. The paper will focus on the detailed implementation of the buffer manager and its main features. The experience and the achieved performance will be covered as well.  
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TUP012 The Total-Temperature Measurements and Interlock System at the VEPP-4M Collider 105
 
  • O. A. Plotnikova
    BINP, Novosibirsk
  • V. I. Kaplin, S. E. Karnaev, A. N. Kvashnin, S. P. Vasichev
    BINP SB RAS, Novosibirsk
 
  The temperature conditions affect the circulating bunches parameters in colliders. So, the permanent temperature measurements are very important for the estimation of the beam energy during the experiments with colliding beams. The system is realized in order to measure precisely temperature in a lot of points (about 500) of the VEPP-4M facility: magnet yokes, coils, air in the tunnel and electrical power connections, RF cavities, water cooling, environment. The system provides the interlock functions. In the case of overheating in measuring points the system switch off the corresponding power supplies. The system is based on using of DS1631Z Accuracy Digital Thermometers and 32-channel home-developed controller. The controllers are connected to PC via serial interface. Temperature values are renewed automatically for the all channels in each controller in 0.75 second. The program running in PC reads the data from the all controllers and transfers the temperature data to PostgreSQL database every minute. The graphic interface provides browsing of the temperature diagrams for the selected thermometers for any period of time. All the programs run under Linux.

*The precision temperature measuring system of the VEPP-4M electron-positron collider,
Proc. of RuPAC 2006, Novosibirsk

 
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TUP013 First Experiences with a Device Server Generator for Server Applications for PETRA III 108
 
  • J. Wilgen
    DESY, Hamburg
 
  In recent control systems at DESY, a device server generator and framework is used for the production of device servers in the TINE/Java environment. The generator significantly simplifies development and provides a standardized architecture for device server programs. First experiences are reported.  
TUP014 Software Control for a Multilayer Monochromator 110
 
  • A. Pazos, M. DiCastro, S. Fiedler, D. Fulla, T. Gehrmann, C. Hermes, D. Jahn, F. Ridoutt, U. R. Ristau, B. Robrahn
    EMBL, Hamburg
 
  The EMBL is located at the DESY site in Hamburg and operates 5 beamlines at the DORIS III storage ring. Currently the EMBL Hamburg is in charge to build three new beamlines at the new PETRA III high-brilliance synchrotron radiation source which will commence user operation in 2009. A new multilayer double-crystal monochromator has been developed in house. This has been a real application test for the software and hardware architecture of the new PETRAIII beamlines. An embedded-PC controls the electronic integrated in the EtherCAT real-time Ethernet bus. Inside this PC a logic of PLC’s directly drives the hardware allowing real time data acquisition. The control of the system is distributed and remotely accessible by a connection to a TINE device server. The commissioning phase has been done using a Labview TINE client application. The client is able to perform on-the-fly scans thanks to the PLC's base logic. In the following paper the different pieces of the system are presented as well as an overview of the instrument.  
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TUP015 A Modbus/TCP-based Power Supply Interface 113
 
  • D. T. Touchard, C. H. Haquin
    GANIL, Caen
 
  The Spiral2 project is aiming to provide high intensity rare ion beams for nuclear physics experiments. It is based first on a primary beam driver accelerator consisting of a RFQ followed by a superconducting L. I.N. A.C., then a rare ion production process delivers the beam either to a low energy experimental area or to the existing Ganil facility. The EPICS software has been chosen as the basic framework to improve efficient collaboration between several research laboratories (CEA-IRFU, CNRS-IPHC, GANIL) which are designing the accelerator control system. The whole facility will integrate more than 600 power supplies used for the magnetic and high voltage equipment control of the accelerator. It has been decided to interface these power supplies through the MODBUS/TCP protocol, using Ethernet as a field bus. This paper introduces the EPICS software archetype set up to assess the practicability of such a solution and presents a first implantation for prototyping.  
TUP016 Development of Data-logging System for FFAG Accelerator Complex in KURRI 116
 
  • A. Osanai, M. Tanigaki
    KURRI, Osaka
 
  The control system for an FFAG accelerator complex in KURRI (Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute) is based on PLC and LabVIEW on PC. In order to manage a lot of parameters of accelerator all through the operations, the data-logging system using SQL server and Web-browsing databases using PHP have been constructed. Some data-transfer methods were attempted for the purpose of getting the effective data processing cycle in our environment. The construction method and the performance of our data-logging system will be introduced in the presentation.  
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TUP017 Access Control in the Renovated GSI Control System: A Combined Name- and Rights-Server 119
 
  • U. Krause, K. Höppner, S. Matthies
    GSI, Darmstadt
 
  The GSI control system implements an access control mechanism: Modifying of device settings is possible only when access rights are granted to the user. Originally integrated in the client side of the proprietary network layers, replacement of this middleware by the newly developed CORBA based communication required a new acess control implementation. Authorization is coded in device-specific patterns: A command is executed on the front-end server only when the correct pattern is provided. These patterns are handled by a central rights server, which is combined with the anyway needed CORBA naming resolution service. Being a lightweight approach, it should provide sufficient protection against undisciplined users which otherwise may severely disturb facility's operation.  
TUP018 Re-writing ALS Control Room Software in C# 122
 
  • H. Nishimura, G. J. Portmann, CA. Timossi, M. E. Urashka
    LBNL, Berkeley, California
 
  After years of R&D studies showing the value of migrating the operator interface applications to the .NET Framework, a small team has been formed to focus on re-writing all of the high-level control system software using the C# programming language for the Windows Vista based operator stations. We have currently upgraded several major programs with the goal of focusing on the injector system that was commissioned in 1991. We will present real examples, and discuss the technical issues of migrating to the .NET Framework in the context of the EPICS* client programming. The architectural issues will be presented in another paper.

*Dalesio, et al. "The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System Architecture," submitted to ICALEPCS, Berlin, Germany, Oct. 18-22, 1993.

 
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TUP019 Stepping Motor Control for Septum Plate Positioning 125
 
  • K. Herlo
    GSI, Darmstadt
 
  A new injection septum will be installed in the GSI accelerator facility. Both septum plates can be adjusted by four stepping motors, where two motors per plate have to be moved simultaneously and in parallel. Since the GSI standard stepping motor controller can handle only one motor at a time, a commercial stepping motor controller, microIOC-M-Box from Cosylab, had to be integrated, that can handle all motors simultaneously. We installed the software development system and ported the new GSI front-end control software, the device manager, to the motor controller. Afterwards, we designed and implemented a new device model that assures parallel movements and does extensive checks to prevent from too large skew angles. In the operator's interfaces, no particular care to meet the position constraints is needed.  
TUP020 The JetFsm Data Acquisition Framework, and Proposed Usage for ITER 128
 
  • P. J.L. Heesterman, S. Griph, C. H.A. Hogben, D. Kinna, K. Kneupner
    EFDA-JET, Abingdon, Oxon
 
  A comprehensive C++ framework, using the HTTP-based 'black box' protocol, has been developed to allow PC-based control, data acquisition and data visualisation of new JET diagnostic enhancements. This framework allows remote and local developers to develop new applications, with extensive code re-use, without needing to re-implement exiting communication, data management or data visualisation functionality. The paper describes the usage of the Windows implementation. The paper also highlights 5 years of experiences in collaborative development using this approach, and details some of the lessons that have been learnt. The 'black box' approach at JET is similar to that proposed for the ITER plant systems delivered in-kind along with their I&C. Extensions to the framework to cater for the ITER model will be proposed.  
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TUP021 The HTTP 'Black Box' Protocol for Control and Data Acquisition at JET 131
 
  • C. H.A. Hogben, M. Beldishevski, S. Griph, P. J.L. Heesterman, K. Kneupner, R. M.A. Lucock
    EFDA-JET, Abingdon, Oxon
 
  The CODAS department of the Joint European Torus project has developed an application protocol for centralised simultaneous data acquisition, control and monitoring of a large number of processors. It is developed around the easy-to-use HTTP standard. The protocol has now been in use for about 5 years. It is intended to allow parallel, collaborative, developments to take place, by defining communication interfaces between systems. For this reason, it is referred to as the 'Black Box' protocol. The paper outlines the main factors that led to this protocol choice, and the benefits and experience gained. The paper briefly describes the functionality of the protocol, and explains how these are being used on a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Solaris, VME, and PLCs.  
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TUP022 A .NET Interface for Channel Access 134
 
  • G. Cox
    STFC/DL, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire
 
  The control system for Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments (ALICE) under construction at Daresbury Laboratory uses EPICS and vxWorks on VME64x. The client software in use during the commissioning of the accelerator is based on PC consoles running Red Hat Linux 9. Synoptic displays and engineering panels are created using the Extensible Display Manager (EDM) and other standard EPICS extension software is used for archival, alarm handling etc. A similar EPICS based control system is being used for the commissioning of the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE) under construction at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) control system uses a bespoke control system with client software on PC consoles running Microsoft Windows. We would like to employ a similar approach for the operational client software on ALICE and MICE with Channel Access (CA) clients running on Microsoft Windows PC consoles. This paper presents the .NET Channel Access interface developed at Daresbury and showcases .NET client applications being developed for both ALICE and MICE operations.  
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TUP024 Diverse Uses of Python at Diamond 137
 
  • I. J. Gillingham, M. G. Abbott, T. M. Cobb, M. T. Heron
    Diamond, Oxfordshire
 
  Diamond Control Systems Group has used Python for a range of control system applications. These include scripts to support use of the application build environment, client GUIs and integrated with EPICS as EPICS Channel Access servers and concentrators. This paper will present these applications and summarise our experience.  
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