Automated Execution and Tracking of the LHC Commissioning Tests

Abstract

To ensure the correct operation and prevent system failures, which can lead to equipment damage in the worst case, all critical systems in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), among them the superconducting circuits, have to be tested thoroughly during dedicated commissioning phases after each intervention. In view of the around 7,000 individual tests to be performed each year after a Christmas stop, a lot of effort was already put into the automation of these tests at the beginning of LHC hardware commissioning in 2005, to assure the dependable execution and analysis of these tests. To further increase the productivity during the commissioning campaigns and to enforce a more consistent workflow, the development of a dedicated testing framework was launched. This new framework is designed to schedule and track the automated tests for all systems of the LHC and will also be extendable, e.g., to beam commissioning tests. This is achieved by re-using different, already existing execution frameworks. In this paper, we outline the motivation for this new framework and the related improvements in the commissioning process. Further, we sketch its design and present first experience from the recommissioning campaign in early 2012