ECS Experiment Control System

1
ECS Experiment Control System

• Burkhard Kolb, GSI
• CBM collaboration meeting
• Darmstadt, March 9 - 12, 2005

2
Main Goal

• The Experiment Control system (ECS) has to ensure
  the coherent and safe operation of the CBM
  experiment.
• One main requirement is the easy integration of
  independently developed components.

3
What it does - and what not

• The Experiment Control System is used to
  supervise and operate all detector hardware, the
  common experimental infrastructure, it provides
  the status of detector components for the CBM
  DAQ, it interfaces to the GSI infrastructure and
  to the SIS accelerator.
• The ECS does not deal with the safety of
  personnel.

4
Client - Server Model

• The clients are the distributed user interfaces
  (GUI), archiving stations, alarm handlers, and
  other high-level interfaces.
• The servers are agents running either in the DCS
  boards or workstations or single board computers
  which interface to the specific detector or
  infrastructure hardware.
• Clients and servers communicate overIP networks
  with protocols like channel access (CA), DIM or
  similar.

5
Standalone operation

• The ECS has to be capable of operating the
  detector hardware without the DAQ system.
  Therefore it should wherever possible use its own
  control path to the hardware.

6
Partitioning

• The ECS can be partitioned in sub-detectors for
  development and separate testing on a per agent
  basis.
• GUI panels, archiving, and alarm handling also
  can be built accordingly.

7
Integration

• The ECS has to integrate independently developed
  components by providing interoperability between
  a small number of allowed standards (field
  busses, SCADA systems, common hardware)

8
Functionality 1 - Setting

• The ECS sets the detector system into RUN status
  by loading parameters and configuration files
  from the database to detector and trigger
  hardware. This includes the loading of
  programmable logic (FPGAs,...)
• For speed of operation the database will be
  distributed and local caches in agents or
  intermediate management layers will be used (LAM
  and WAM).

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Functionality 2 - Monitoring

• The ECS monitors operational parameters from
  detectors, trigger hardware, high and low voltage
  supplies, gas systems, position measurement
  systems, and environment and provides a GUI to
  these process variables (PV) to the user.
• All relevant process variables are archived to
  the database.
• Historical views and trending is provided to the
  user and via APIs to the analysis software.

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Functionality 3 - Archiving

• All relevant process variables are archived to
  the database (ORACLE)
• Historical views and trending is provided to the
  user and via APIs to the analysis software.

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Functionality 4 - Alarms

• The state of critical process variables is
  constantly monitored and compared against
  predefined boundaries (on server).
• The alarm handling client alerts the operator and
  logs alarm states and acknowledgments to log
  files (or database).
• Interlocks and detector safety are provided with
  dedicated hardware (i.e. PLCs), but the ECS
  monitors this hardware and the interlock status.

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Functionality 5 - Access

• Access Control for modification of parameters in
  the ECS and in the database are provided through
  user accounts and passwords.

13
Software

• Open source software
• For the reason of maintainability and licensing
  costs we want to use wherever possible open
  source software. There are several packages which
  are used with good experience in the HEP
  community, like EPICS and DIM.
• Commercial SCADA
• On the other hand there are many laboratory style
  hardware setups like gas systems, high voltage
  supplies, connections to PLCs, which are build
  around commercial SCADA packages like LabView. We
  will try to interconnect these sub systems to the
  general ECS by writing gateways.

14
Hardware

• Early on a set of standardized hardware
  components which can be reused in the different
  detector sections has to be identified, as there
  are
• High Voltage
• Low voltage power supplies
• Crates and racks
• Temperature sensors
• Position sensors
• Gas supply systems, valves, flow meters
• Through standardization we will have fewer
  different components and need less spares.

15
DCS system

• The detector control system (DCS) is an agent
  unit for many detector front-end components.
• It acts as a status and event server for the ECS
  system as well as a client for controlling all
  front-end electronics.
• The DCS will be implemented as a single board
  computer.
• It consists of DCS hardware (DCS board), an
  operating system and the DCS application.

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DCS functionality

• The main tasks of DCS are to securely switch on
  and off front-end electronics, to configure all
  components (including FPGAs), and to set and
  monitor all software and hardware parameters.
• Additionally the DCS should implement the runtime
  refresh for all FPGAs exposed to high radiation.
• DCS acts as an agent to the experiment control
  system (ECS).

17
URD

• An user requirements document (URD) template is
  being prepared.
• It will be send to all detector group
  coordinators to collect the information about the
  to be controlled hardware.

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Next steps

• Constitute ECS group.
• Collect URD and identify common hardware.
• Work on gateways for existing software
  frameworks
• EPICS
• DIM
• Labview
• OPC