Overview of the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) Channel Archiver

The Channel Archiver has been operational for more than two years at Los Alamos National Laboratory and other sites. This paper introduces the available components (data sampling engine, viewers, scripting interface, HTTP/CGI integration and data management), presents updated performance measurements and reviews operational experience with the Channel Archiver.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, 8th International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems (PSN THAP019), San Jose, CA, USA, November 27-3

Modernization of control system of the beam critical parameters at a LU-10 industrial electron accelerator

Continuous control and monitoring of critical parameters of radiation processing of products is one of the requirements of the international standard ISO 11137. The current system to monitoring the parameters of radiation treatment of products at the LU-10 accelerator is being in operation for more than 15 years. The life-time of the mayor part of measuring modules is over, and those modules are no longer produced. Modernization of monitoring system with the use of the multi-functional USB modules, single-board mini-computers and EPICS control system (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) is considered. The architecture and software for a new monitoring system have been developed. Debugging and operation of the system in a test mode is performed.Безперервний контроль і моніторинг критичних параметрів радіаційної обробки продукції є одним з вимог Міжнародного стандарту ISO 11137. Діюча система контролю параметрів радіаційної обробки продукції на прискорювачі ЛП-10 працює більше 15 років. Велика частина вимірювальних модулів системи виробила свій ресурс і більше не виробляється. Розглянуто модернізацію системи контролю з використанням багатофункціональних USB-модулів, одноплатних міні-комп'ютерів та системи управління EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System). Розроблена архітектура та програмне забезпечення для нової системи контролю параметрів радіаційної обробки. Проводиться налагодження і робота системи в тестовому режимі.Непрерывный контроль и мониторинг критических параметров радиационной обработки продукции является одним из требований Международного стандарта ISO 11137. Действующая система контроля параметров радиационной обработки продукции на ускорителе ЛУ-10 работает более 15 лет. Большая часть измерительных модулей системы выработала свой ресурс и больше не производится. Рассмотрена модернизация системы контроля с использованием многофункциональных USB-модулей, одноплатных мини-компьютеров и системы управления EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System). Разработана архитектура и программное обеспечение для новой системы контроля параметров радиационной обработки. Проводится отладка и работа системы в тестовом режиме

Design and Development of EPICS Based RF Conditioning System for the High Power RF Components of Charged Particle Accelerators

Charged particle accelerators use various vacuum windows on their accelerating RF cavities to pass very high RF power through for the acceleration of particles. The accelerating cavities and the windows should be cleaned, baked and fully RF conditioned to eliminate poor vacuum caused by outgassing and other contamination. The linear accelerator (Linac) in the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) contains various accelerating cavity structures and RF conditioning of their high power vacuum windows is necessary for present work as well as future upgrade and development. An example is the coaxial fundamental power coupler (FPC) with an annular alumina ceramic window for each of the 81 superconducting RF cavities in the SNS Linac. The FPC’s need to be tested up to 650 kW peak in traveling wave and 2.6 MW in standing wave in 1.3 microsecond 60 pulses per second RF. 805 MHz, 550-kW klystrons (700 kW maximum) are the main power source of the superconducting Linac and the conditioning power source of the FPC’s. The conditioning process has to be controlled very carefully not to damage the window; with the high power RF the initial vacuum is unpredictable and any unsafe vacuum level can damage the high quality ceramic windows. In this thesis, an Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) controlled RF conditioning system for the SNS RF Test Facility (RFTF) has been presented. Various RF and control instruments are integrated through the EPICS system on Linux platform to measure and to control the vacuum and the RF power while monitoring electron emission and unwanted arcing during the conditioning. Monitoring arcing at the window and flow and temperature of cooling water in high power RF load and ceramic window is necessary to interlock the RF not to have any kind of undesirable operation condition. The interlock system has been designed by using the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and an RF switch with microseconds response time. Usually the whole conditioning process takes several days, so it is necessary to get the flexibility to control, monitor, and archive the system operation remotely along with good upgradeability. To get these advantages in EPICS, VXI/VME based Input and Output Controller (IOC)s are used for controlling and monitoring the RF conditioning system. This thesis summarizes all the hardware and software design strategies, provides the results obtained so far at room temperature and describes the future research scope

Development and commissioning of a digital rf control system for the S-DALINAC and migration of the accelerator control system to an EPICS-based system

The high resolution scattering experiments conducted at the superconducting Darmstadt electron linear accelerator S-DALINAC call for a small energy spread of (ΔE/E) ≈ 1×10⁻⁴ of the beam. This requires stabilization of amplitude and phase of the electric field inside the accelerating cavities to (ΔA/A)ᵣₘₛ = 8×10⁻⁵ and (Δφ)ᵣₘₛ = 0.7°. The design and the commissioning of a new digital rf control system is the subject of this thesis. At the S-DALINAC two types of cavities are in use. The normal-conducting chopper and buncher cavities only need corrections for slow temperature drifts and can be controlled by a generator-driven resonator control algorithm. The superconducting accelerating cavities have a very high quality factor and thus are very susceptible to vibrations. Therefore they are operated in a self-excited loop. The rf control system is based on in-house developed hardware that converts the rf signal down to the baseband, digitizes it and feeds it into an FPGA. Inside this FPGA, a soft digital signal processor executes the control algorithm. The resulting correction is modulated onto the rf signal again and sent back to the cavity. All accelerator components are remote-controlled from a central room via an accelerator control system. Since complex and re-programmable devices are not supported well by the existing in-house developed control system, the design and implementation of a new accelerator control system is also subject of this thesis. Further important aspects are expandability, usability and maintainability of the system. Therefore the new accelerator control system uses the EPICS framework as a basis since it already provides much of the basic functionality like graphical user interfaces and flexible control servers that can be customized rapidly. This allowed the implementation of more advanced functionality like extensive read-out and diagnostics for the rf control system. The read out data can be visualized with a software oscilloscope and a spectrum analyzer software. Additionally the system provides on-line rms errors that can be used to optimize the control parameters very precisely and to monitor the performance of the controllers. Measurements show that the performance of the rf control system has been improved by one order of magnitude compared to the analog system, yielding a phase stability of (Δφ)ᵣₘₛ = 0.8° and an amplitude stability of (ΔA/A)ᵣₘₛ = 7×10⁻⁵ and thus meeting the specification. The described rf control system has been commissioned and successfully used for beam operation for two years. During this time the system has proven to be significantly more stable and reliable than the old analog system

A near-infrared pyramid wavefront sensor for Keck adaptive optics: real-time controller

A new real-time control system will be implemented within the Keck II adaptive optics system to support the new near-infrared pyramid wavefront sensor. The new real-time computer has to interface with an existing, very productive adaptive optics system. We discuss our solution to install it in an operational environment without impacting science. This solution is based on an independent SCExAO-based pyramid wavefront sensor realtime processor solution using the hardware interfaces provided by the existing Keck II real-time controller. We introduce the new pyramid real-time controller system design, its expected performance, and the modification of the operational real-time controller to support the pyramid system including interfacing with the existing deformable and tip-tilt mirrors. We describe the integration of the Saphira detector-based camera and the Boston Micromachines kilo-DM in this new architecture. We explain the software architecture and philosophy, the shared memory concept and how the real-time computer uses the power of GPUs for adaptive optics control. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this architecture and how it can benefit other projects. The motion control of the devices deployed on the Keck II adaptive optics bench to support the alignment of the light on the sensors is also described. The interfaces, developed to deal with the rest of the Keck telescope systems in the observatory distributed system, are reviewed. Based on this experience, we present which design ideas could have helped us integrate the new system with the previous one and the resultant performance gains