ESS Bilbao, Zamudio, Spain
University of the Basque Country, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bilbao, Spain
Although EPICS is a mature software framework, the study and validation of new configurations of EPICS systems is very valuable, since new ideas open its evolution and improvement. So, the goal of the present work is to introduce new technologies under EPICS control structures and test different configurations with innovative hardware in this kind of applications. More specifically, it is intended to validate the use of non-stardard EPICS controllers. This paper presents a test bench using LabVIEW together with EPICS. LabVIEW eases and speeds up the development of control structures, avoids the hardware dependent developing costs and offers almost absolute compatibility with all kind of hardware used in control and data acquisition. To validate its use, it is mandatory to make a study facing this solution and EPICS standard methodology, specifically CODAC system used in ITER. To do so, a test bench is defined running both methods and its results compared. Following this scheme, the next step is to make a similar experiment introducing wireless links and replacing as many wires as possible.
