ICALEPCS2009 - Table of Sessions

TUA — Operational Tools (13-Oct-09 08:30—09:55)

Paper	Title	Page
TUA001	The Best Ever Alarm System Toolkit	46
	K.-U. Kasemir, X. H. Chen, E. Danilova ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
	Funding: SNS is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 for the U. S. Department of Energy Learning from our experience with the standard EPICS alarm handler (ALH) as well as a similar intermediate approach based on script-generated operator screens, we developed the Best Ever Alarm System Toolkit (BEAST). It is based on Java and Eclipse on the Control System Studio (CSS) platform, using a relational database (RDB) to store the configuration and log actions. It employs a Java Message Service (JMS) for communication between the modular pieces of the toolkit, which include an Alarm Server to maintain the current alarm state, an arbitrary number of Alarm Client user interfaces (GUI), and tools to annunciate alarms or log alarm related actions. Web reports allow us to monitor the alarm system performance and spot deficiencies in the alarm configuration. The Alarm Client GUI not only gives the end users various ways to view alarms in tree and table, but also makes it easy to access the guidance information, the related operator displays and other CSS tools. It also allows online configuration to be simply modified from the GUI. Coupled with a good "alarm philosophy" on how to provide useful alarms, we can finally improve the configuration to achieve an effective alarm system.
	Slides
TUA002	Automated Operation of the Metrology Light Source Storage Ring	49
	T. Birke Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH, Elektronen-Speicherring BESSY II, Berlin
	The Metrology Light Source (MLS) is in user operation since April 2008. This versatile facility has to work at energies ranging from 10⁵ MeV up to 630 MeV, operating currents from a single electron up to 200 mA and different values for the momentum compaction factor according to the user demands that vary even on very short notice. A software system has been developed to control and coordinate the broad manifold of machine states. Design goal of the software was to keep and transfer machine and control system within well-defined and consistent states. It should minimize errors due to inadvertences and avoid mistakes when following complex command sequences. The software is modelled as a finite state machine. Actions are configured and triggered by a few high level commands. This paper describes program functionalities and interfaces. Experiences with ‘automated operation' using this indispensable operator tool for a reliable setting up of a very sensitive machine are reported.
	Slides
TUA003	National Ignition Facility Control and Information System Operational Tools	52
	C. D. Marshall, R. G. Beeler, G. A. Bowers, R. W. Carey, J. M. Fisher, C. B. Foxworthy, T. M. Frazier, L. J. Lagin, D. G. Mathisen, J. J. Rhodes, M. J. Shaw LLNL, Livermore, California
	Funding: This work performed by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC under the auspices of the U. S. Dept. of Energy contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the world's highest-energy laser fusion system. The extensive operational tools suite includes experimental setup, pre-shot machine readiness, setup change management, machine health alerts, laser performance and optimization modeling, and a post-shot robotic optics inspection and analysis to guide refurbishment. For example, experiments are setup by a campaign management tool and laser model that allows principal investigators to flexibly define experimental goals. The facility machine readiness is assessed with a configuration checker application by comparing the planned experiment with the hardware operational status for each of NIF's 192 beams. In addition, a restriction manager records and classifies conditional use restrictions on sub-systems categorized by location and types. The experimental goals are algorithmically compared with these categorized restrictions. Machine health and safety control points are directly verified at shot time by the status verifier application which is independent of the supervisory control system. Examples of these and other operational tool requirements and implementations will be presented.
	Slides
TUA004	Automatic Inventory and Configuration Management Tools for the LHC Power Converter Controls	55
	S. T. Page, Q. King, Z. Zaharieva CERN, Geneva
	The LHC has more than 1700 power converters of a variety of different designs, each of which is itself composed of many hardware components. These components must be individually tracked throughout their lifetimes for inventory purposes. Additionally, each component may have associated configuration and calibration values that must follow the component wherever it is installed within the accelerator. The complete history of the inventory and configurations must be retained as well as the calibration values in order to track their evolution. With such a large machine the probability of human error is high, therefore an automated solution is desirable. A system was put in place for the LHC power converter controls that automatically detects the connection of a new device, updates its location and loads its configuration and calibration values from a database within a few seconds. The identification of all key components is remotely readable via the control system. This paper describes the system, detailing its architecture, choices made and results achieved as well as challenges overcome during its implementation.
	Slides
TUA005	Prototype of a DDS-Based High-Level Accelerator Application Environment	58
	N. Malitsky, J. Shah BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York N. Hasabnis Stony Brook University, Stony Brook S. G. Shasharina, N. Wang Tech-X, Boulder, Colorado R. M. Talman CLASSE, Ithaca, New York
	Funding: This manuscript has been authored by employees of Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886 with the U. S. Department of Energy. Data Distributed Service (DDS) from the Object Management Group represents the next generation of industrial middleware standards, bringing a data-centric publish-subscribe paradigm to distributed control systems. In comparison with existing middleware technologies, the data-centric approach is able to provide a consistent consolidated model supporting the different data dissemination scenarios and integrating many important issues, such as user-specific types, quality of service, data stream management and others. The paper highlights the different features of the DDS technology and introduces a prototype of the NSLS-II high level application environment including key middle layer servers, such as Machine, Online Model and Virtual Accelerator. The proposed environment is developed and evaluated on top of EPICS-DDS, an open source implementation of the DDS standard interface based on the EPICS Channel Access protocol (http://sourceforge.net/projects/epics-dds/).
	Slides