MicroTCA Based LLRF Control Systems for TARLA and NICA

The MicroTCA Technology Lab (A Helmholtz Innovation Lab) is preparing two turn-key Low Level RF control systems for facilities outside of DESY. The Turkish Accelerator and Radiation Laboratory in Ankara (TARLA) is a 40 MeV electron accelerator with continuous wave (CW) RF operation. The MicroTCA based LLRF control system is responsible for two normal conducting and four superconducting cavities, controlling the RF as well as cavity tuning via motors and piezos. The Light Ion Linac (LILAC) is one of the injectors for the Nuclotron-based Ion Collider Facility (NICA) in Dubna, Russia. It will provide a 7 MeV/u pulsed, polarized proton or deuteron beam. The MicroTCA based LLRF control system will control five normal conducting cavities, consisting of one RFQ, one buncher, one debuncher and two IH-cavities. MicroTCA Technology Lab is cooperating with BEVATECH GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany, who designed the cavities. This paper gives a brief overview of the design of both LLRF systems as well as the status of their assembly

A New Major Release of ChimeraTK ApplicationCore and DeviceAccess

ChimeraTK is a software framework for the development of control applications. Recently, version 02.00 of ChimeraTK's DeviceAccess, ApplicationCore and ControlSystemAdapter libraries have been released. They feature a new exception reporting and handling scheme, which has been introduced to work consistently across all libraries of the framework. It implements automatic recovery from device errors and proper device initialisation after malfunctioning and at application start

Automated Device Error Handling in Control Applications

When integrating devices into a control system, the device applications usually contain a large fraction of error handling code. Many of these errors are run time errors which occur when communicating with the hardware, and usually have similar handling strategies. Therefore we extended ChimeraTK, a software toolkit for the development of control applications in various control system frameworks, such that the repetition of error handling code in each application can be avoided. ChimeraTK now also features automatic error reporting, recovery from device errors, and proper device initialisation after malfunctioning and at application start

The New Light Ion Injector for NICA

Within the upgrade scheme of the injection complex of the NICA project and after a successful beam commissioning of a heavy ion linac, Bevatech GmbH will build a first part of a new light ion linac as an injector for the Nuclotron ring. The linac will provide a beam of polarised protons and light ions with a mass to charge ratio up to 3 and an energy of 7 MeV/u. The mandate of the Linac does not only include the hardware for the accelerating structures, focusing magnets and beam diagnostic devices, but also the LLRF control soft- and hardware based on the MicroTCA.4 standard in collaboration with the MicroTCA Technology Lab at DESY. An overview of the Linac is presented in this paper