CERN Control Standards Front-End Computer Layer Stéphane Deghaye BE/CO/FE

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – Scope of the talk Hardware aspects Software aspects Contact list Agenda 2 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – Control system based on a 3-tier architecture Graphical User Interface running in the control room Business tier running on servers Real-time control running on Front-End Computers This presentation doesn’t cover the high-level control aspects Front-End Computer (aka FEC) Embedded system (no HDD, screen, keyboard) connected to the mains and Ethernet Real-time control (and acquisition) of the hardware Scope 3 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer High-level Low-level

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – FEC platforms VME bus crate (ELMA) + MEN A20 CPU (several sizes avail.) PICMG 1.3 (Kontron industrial PCs), PCI & PCI-e supported Low-level controllers PLCs (Siemens) PXI crates Mini-PCs Hardware aspects Controllers 4 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – Generic I/O modules for VME & PCI(-e) Function generation Digital I/O Analogue I/O ADC & Digitiser (up to 8 GSa/s) Timing and fine delay (CTR,...) … Other more specific modules also available (e.g. RS422, Mil1553) but w/o the complete integration Hardware aspects Modules 5 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – FMC – ANSI/VITA mezzanine standard No predefined pin layout (except mezzanine ID with I2C) Analogue part on the mezzanine & FPGA on the carrier board CERN-made carriers available (low pin count version) VME (2 FMCs) PCI-e (1 FMC) Integration of new non-FMC modules (VME or PCI-e) by the collaboration also possible Hardware aspects Extensions 6 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – The Controls group provides a service for the procurement and installation of the FECs and their modules Strongly recommended to use the service to ensure: Hardware type is exactly the one supported Installations are done according to the CO rules Installations are recorded and documents properly Interventions are possible by the support team Payment is done thanks to CERN budget codes (project, team…) Hardware aspects Purchases & installations 7 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – All FECs are now running Linux as operating system Two versions available: Scientific Linux CERN 5 (based on RHE 5) – 32 bits Scientific Linux CERN 6 (based on RHE 6) – 64 bits All CO supported modules (VME/PCI-e) come with their kernel driver and user library CO provides a kernel driver generator should new module be integrated (Encore) Software aspects OS & drivers 8 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – Real-time applications are developed with FESA. FESA is a tool that helps with: Design/modelling of the class Boiler-plate code (generated from the design) Communication Data handling Real-time scheduling … Should new FESA classes be developed, consider registering to the training (3 days) Software aspects Real-time applications 9 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer C++ framework

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – For CO supported modules, there are one or several FESA classes already available. E.g. Arbitrary/Periodic function generation Digital/Analogue I/O (several modes) ADCs and digitisers (kHz  GHz) Pulse generation and manipulation (Timing receiver, fine delay…) Existing classes can be extended (composition/association) to build a specific system or post-process further the data (e.g. cursor…) In some cases, high-level generic applications are available (OASIS, function editor…) Software aspects Generic FESA classes 10 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – The communication between the FECs and the low-level controllers (e.g. PLC) is done thanks to the IEPLC library “Data block exchange” type of protocol Tool to design the data structure and generate the code Software aspects Low-level controllers 11 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – Not to be overlooked Generic high-level don’t support all possibilities given by the low-level  integration tests early in the process CMW-RDA is the main communication protocol (middleware) and must be use if custom solutions are put in place Sending data over the network is not sufficient for the generic tools; require database description and proper integration  strive for using CO supported solutions Integration with CO high-level software 12 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer

Stéphane Deghaye – BE/CO/FE – FEC platforms & procurement: Marc Vanden Eynden Installations: Claude Dehavay Generic modules & extension (FMC): Javier Serrano Low-level controller & IEPLC: Frank Locci Operating system: Stephen Page FESA framework: Stéphane Deghaye Generic module software: Steen Jensen Analogue signal acquisition: Anastasiya Radeva For more details on… 13 CERN Control Standards – Front-End Computer Layer