The EPICS Software Framework Moves from Controls to Physics

The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS), is an open-source software framework for high-performance distributed control, and is at the heart of many of the world’s large accelerators and telescopes. Recently, EPICS has undergone a major revision, with the aim of better computing supporting for the next generation of machines and analytical tools. Many new data types, such as matrices, tables, images, and statistical descriptions, plus users’ own data types, now supplement the simple scalar and waveform types of the former EPICS. New computational architectures for scientific computing have been added for high-performance data processing services and pipelining. Python and Java bindings have enabled powerful new user interfaces. The result has been that controls are now being integrated with modelling and simulation, machine learning, enterprise databases, and experiment DAQs. We introduce this new EPICS (version 7) from the perspective of accelerator physics and review early adoption cases in accelerators around the world

First Lasing of the IR FEL at the Fritz-Haber-Institut Berlin

A new mid-infrared FEL has been commissioned at the Fritz-Haber-Institut in Berlin. The oscillator FEL operates with 15 – 50 MeV electrons from a normal-conducting Sband linac. Calculations of the FEL gain and IR-cavity losses predict that lasing will be possible in the wavelength range from less than 4 to more than 50 μm. First lasing was achieved at a wavelength of 16 μm with an electron energy of 28 MeV. At these conditions, lasing was observed over a cavity length scan range of 100 μm

EPICS V4 EXPANDS SUPPORT TO PHYSICS APPLICATION, DATA ACSUISITION, AND DATA ANALYSIS

EPICS version 4 extends the functionality of version 3 by providing the ability to define, transport, and introspect composite data types. Version 3 provided a set of process variables and a data protocol that adequately defined scalar data along with an atomic set of attributes. While remaining backward compatible, Version 4 is able to easily expand this set with a data protocol capable of exchanging complex data types and parameterized data requests. Additionally, a group of engineers defined reference types for some applications in this environment. The goal of this work is to define a narrow interface with the minimal set of data types needed to support a distributed architecture for physics applications, data acquisition, and data analysi

EPICS 7 core status report

The integration of structured data and the PV Access network protocol into the EPICS toolkit has opened up many possibilities for added functionality and features, which more and more facilities are looking to leverage. At the same time the core developers also have to cope with technical debt incurred in the race to deliver working software. This paper will describe the current status of EPICS 7, and some of the work done in the last two years following the reorganization of the code-base. It will cover some of the development group's technical and process changes, and echo questions being asked about support for recent language standards that may affect support for older target platforms, and adoption of other internal standards for coding and documentation

EPICS 7 Provides Major Enhancements to the EPICS Toolkit

The release of EPICS 7 marks a major enhancement to the EPICS toolkit. EPICS 7 combines the proven functionality, reliability and capability of EPICS V3 with the powerful EPICS V4 extensions enabling high-performance network transfers of structured data. The code bases have been merged and reorganized. EPICS 7 provides a new platform for control system development, suitable for data acquisition and high-level services. This paper presents the current state of the EPICS 7 release, including the pvAccess network protocol, normative data types, and language bindings, along with descriptions of new client and service applications