EPICS 2016

22 May 2016, 08:00 → 27 May 2016, 15:00 Europe/Stockholm

Medicon Village Auditorium (Lund)

Susanne Regnell (European Spallation Source ESS AB), Timo Korhonen (European Spallation Source ESS AB)

The Spring 2016 EPICS Collaboration meeting is hosted by the European Spallation Source (ESS) and takes place at the ESS in Lund, Sweden from 22-27 May 2016. The collaboration meeting will consist of two days of pre-meeting sessions Sunday and Monday, 22.-23 (for EPICS v4 developers and invited participants only). May 2016, one day EPICS V4 training session on Tuesday the 24. May, and the main EPICS meeting on Wednesday-Friday, 25.-27. May 2016.

There will be a one-day ASYN and Area Detector Training by Mark Rivers on Tuesday the 24th.

There will also be a conference dinner on Wednesday the 25.May. We are also planning a visit to the ESS construction site in the afternoon of Friday the 27., after the meeting ends. When you register, please also indicate if you plan to attend these events.

EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) is a set of open source software tools, libraries and applications developed collaboratively and used worldwide to create distributed soft real-time control systems for scientific instruments such as particle accelerators, telescopes, and large scientific experiments. These collaboration meetings provide a chance for developers and managers from the various different sites to come together and discuss their work and progress, and make plans for the future. They give a chance to see what is being done at other laboratories, and to review the specifications for new tools or enhancements to existing ones in order to maximize their usefulness to the whole community and avoid duplication of effort.

Venue: The Spring 2016 EPICS Collaboration meeting will take place in the ESS premises in Lund, Sweden.

Poster EPICS2016-Lund-photo.jpeg

Slides full-material.zip

Sunday, 22 May

09:00 → 17:00 EPICS V4 Developers Meeting - restricted attendance: Day 1

Developers working session. Attendance restricted to V4 developers.

Monday, 23 May

09:00 → 17:00 EPICS V4 Developers Meeting - restricted attendance: Day 2

Developers working session. Attendance restricted to V4 developers.

Tuesday, 24 May

08:30 → 09:00 Registration & coffee

Registration for the trainings and the main meeting for early participants

09:00 → 17:00 Asyn & Area Detector Training

Asyn driver & Area Detector training by Mark Rivers, University of Chicago

09:00 → 17:00 EPICS V4 training: Hands-on training for EPICS developers

Training for EPICS developers who have an understanding of EPICS but want to learn to write client or server software using the new features of EPICS 4, or want to have an understanding of how version 4 works and what it can provide.

Training materials:
https://ess-ics.atlassian.net/wiki/display/ID/EPICSV4+Training

Wednesday, 25 May

08:15 → 09:00 Registration & coffee

Registration for the meeting

09:00 → 12:30 EPICS Collaboration meeting - main session: Morning session: Welcome & Status reviews

09:00 Welcome & general info

Speaker: Timo Korhonen (European Spallation Source ESS AB)

Slides EPICS2016-intro.pptx

09:05 ESS Status

Speaker: Henrik Carling (European Spallation Source AB)

Slides 02_EPICS_Meeting_2016_05_PA3.pptx

09:30 EtherLab's Open-Source EtherCAT Master

Speaker: Mr Florian Pose (Ingenieurgemeinschaft IgH)

Slides ethercat-master-praesentation.pdf

10:00 Coffee Break

10:30 Advancements and Deployments of EPICS Version 4

EPICS Version 4 is a set of software modules that add to the base of the EPICS toolkit. Version 4 adds a new communications protocol, process variable values of structured data, high performance streaming, and a new front-end processing database for managing complex data I/O. Some standard structured types are predefined, and an introspection interface for dynamic typing is provided. An RPC style facility extends the EPICS environment to service oriented architecture. We briefly introduce the new features of version 4. Then we describe selected deployments, particularly for high throughput experiment data transport, experiment data management, beam dynamics and infrastructure data. We conclude with work in progress and future plans.

Speaker: Greg White (SLAC)

Slides 04_Greg.pptx

11:00 ITER & CODAC Core System - Status Update

Within the ITER international organization, 35 nations are collaborating to build the world's largest fusion facility in the South of France. Most contributions are in-kind - integration of more than 200 plant systems will be the main challenge when building the control system. To support the control system development of plant systems, ITER created CODAC Core System (CCS), a Linux Distribution based on RedHat Enterprise Linux, EPICS and ITER specific tools.

Speaker: Mr Ralph Lange (ITER Organization)

Slides 05_ITER_and_CODAC_-_Status.pptx

11:15 LCLS-II Status Update

The new LCLS-II facility at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is a significant addition to the LCLS-I FEL, designed to dramatically decrease data acquisition time by providing high repetition rate over a broad energy range. The new design consists of a CW superconducting linac with bunch repetition rates of up to one MHz and beam power of several hundred kilowatts. LCLS-II will retain a system architecture based on EPICS, and leverage existing LCLS-I designs where appropriate, while also implementing new technologies to meet the performance requirements of the new machine. A common platform based on ATCA has been designed to support the control and data acquisition systems that operate at 1 MHz. The LCLS-II timing system, beam position monitors, machine protection system, bunch length monitors (and others) are all built on this common platform. This talk will present an overview of LCLS-II, the common platform and the high performance subsystems it supports, as well as the mature controls subsystems based on LCLS-I designs.

Speaker: Mr Matthew Gibbs (SLAC)

Slides lcls-2-status-report.pptx

11:30 SwissFEL Timing System: Status and Plans

This talk gives a brief overview of the SwissFEL timing system, its current status and future plans.

Speaker: Mr Kalantari Babak (PSI)

Slides 07_SwissFEL-Timing-250516-Lund.pptx

11:45 Archiver Appliance Update

The EPICS Archiver Appliance has been in production use at SLAC and other labs for more than three years now. Over the course of the last year, we have added new support for a web based viewer, gated ETL, readonly stores, more automation support, DBE_PROPERTIES, support for arbitrary PVData EPICS V4 PV's and various other features.

Speaker: Mr Murali Shankar (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Slides 08_ArchiverAppliance_EPICS_Spring_2016.pptx

12:00 areaDetector: What’s New?

This talk will focus on enhancements to the areaDetector package since it was last presented at the 2015 collaboration meeting at MSU. These include: **NDPluginTimeSeries**: New plugin to for time-series data. The plugin accepts input arrays of dimensions [NumSignals] or [NumSignals, NewTimePoints]. Creates NumSignals 1-D arrays of dimension [NumTimPoints], each of which is the time-series for one signal. On each callback the new time points are appended to the existing time series arrays. Operates in one of two modes. In Fixed Length mode the time-series arrays are cleared when acquisition starts, and new time points are appended until NumTimePoints points have been received, at which point acquisition stops and further callbacks are ignorred. In Circular Buffer mode when NumTimePoints samples are received then acquisition continues with the new time points replacing the oldest ones in the circular buffer. In this mode the export NDArrays and waveforms always contain the latest NumTimePoints samples, with the first element of the array containing the oldest time point and the last element containing the most recent time point. **NDPluginFFT**: New plugin to compute 1-D or 2-D Fast Fourier transforms. It exports 1-D or 2-D NDArrays containing the absolute value of the FFT. Creates 1-D waveform records of the input, and the real, imaginary, and absolute values of the first row of the FFT. Also creates 1-D waveform records of the time and frequency axes, which are useful if the 1-D input represents a time-series. The waveform records are convenient for plotting in OPI screens. **ADExample**: New detector directory. simDetector was moved from ADCore to ADExample to minimize dependencies in ADCore. New ADCSimDetector driver that simulates a buffered ADC. Useful for testing NDPluginTimeSeries and NDPluginFFT. Significant enhancements to the following drivers will be discussed: - ADPointGrey - ADPerkinElmer - ADMerlin The talk will also discuss future plans for the areaDetector package.

Speaker: Dr Mark Rivers (University of Chicago)

Slides 09_areaDetectorWhat'sNew.ppt

12:15 quadEM: EPICS software for digital electrometers

quadEM supports quad electrometers/picoammeters, typically used for photodiode-based x-ray beam position monitors, or split ion chambers. They can also be used for any low-current measurement that requires high speed digital input. There is support for several models: - The AH401 series (AH401B, AH401D) and AH501 series (AH501, AH501C, AH501D) picoammeters originally designed by Synchrotron Trieste (elettra) and now sold commerically by CAENels. These devices communicate using TCP or UDP over 100 Mbit/s Ethernet or high-speed serial. They provide 4-channel current measurements at up to 6510 Hz (AH501 series) or 1000 Hz (AH401 series). - The TetrAMM picoammeter sold by CAENels. This device communicates using TCP/IP over 1 Gbit/s Ethernet. It provides 4-channel current measurements at up to 20 kHz. - The NSLS Quad Electrometer (called NSLS_EM in this document). This device consists of a 4-channel digital electrometer unit with Ethernet communication. The device provides 4-channel current measurements at up to 2500 Hz. This is now being sold commercially by Sydor Instruments. The quadEM software includes asyn drivers that provide support for the following: - Analog input records using the NDPluginStats plugin from the synApps areaDetector module. This provides digitally averaged readings of the current, sum, difference and position at speeds that are determined by the AveragingTime record described below. The quadEM drivers do the callbacks on the asynGenericPointer interface for NDArray objects required to use the areaDetector plugins. The NDPluginStats module is used to compute the averaged readings. It also provides additional statistics including standard deviation, min, max, and a histogram of values. - The NDPluginStats provide time-series of the statistics. These can be used to for on-the-fly data acquisition applications, where the meter is triggered by an external pulse source, such as one derived from a motor motion. - Streaming data to disk at the full rate from the device. This is done using the file plugins from areaDetector. - Time series data (like a digital scope) of the current, sum, difference and position at speeds up to 20000 Hz. The data is available in standard EPICS waveform records, using the NDPluginTimeSeries plugin from areaDetector/ADCore. The time per point can be greater, in which case it does averaging. - FFTs of the time series data, providing the power spectrum of each signal as another EPICS waveform record. This uses the NDPluginFFT plugin from areaDetector/ADCore. - epid (fast feedback). This provides fast feedback via an asyn D/A converter (e.g. dac128V), also at speeds up to 20000 Hz. If it is run slower it does signal averaging. This support is provided in the synApps std module. The quadEM drivers do the callbacks on the asynFloat64 interface required to use the epid fast feedback device support.

Speaker: Dr Mark Rivers (University of Chicago)

Slides 10_quadEM.pptx

12:30 → 13:30 Lunch break

Lunch will be served at the meeting site

13:30 → 17:45 EPICS Collaboration meeting - main session: Interactive workshops

13:30 EPICS development roadmap

This session shall discuss issues around EPICS development: roadmap, wishes, contributions, codeathon ideas etc.

Slides EPICS_Spring_2016_Elke.pptx EPICSWorkshopNotes.pdf

13:30 EtherCAT in EPICS

EtherCAT is gaining popularity as a control system platform. This session shall discuss the various initiatives in the community.

Slides Lund_-_EtherCAT.pdf Lund_-_EtherCAT.pptx

15:30 Coffee break

Coffee break and switch of mini-workshops

15:45 Hardware platform support

Discussion about support of different hardware platforms (RPi, MTCA, design sharing, open source solutions,FPGA...) in EPICS

15:45 Motion Control

EPICS Motor/motion control working group meeting (https://github.com/epics-motor-wg)

15:45 Timing

Discussion about timing systems and related issues (hardware, drivers, timing-based applications, timestamping,...)

19:00 → 22:00 Conference Dinner

The meeting dinner at Tegnérs Matsalar, Lund

Thursday, 26 May

09:00 → 12:15 EPICS Collaboration meeting - main session: EPICS Collaboration meeting - Day 2

09:00 RegDev: A generic and flexible device support for memory mapped register devices

Many devices map their registers into CPU address space one or the other way. This driver maps such devices to EPICS records in a convenient, flexible and device independent way. It works with VME, PCI/PCIe and on many more memory mapped bus systems.

Speaker: Dr Dirk Zimoch (PSI)

Slides regDev.pptx

09:15 ASYN based S7 PLC driver

A newly developed ASYN based S7 PLC driver has been part of CODAC Core System (CCS) since version 5.0. It supports regular Siemens S7 PLCs (300 & 400 series) and redundant PLCs (400 series) . With the recent CCSv5.2 release, three different type of communication channels are implemented: states/configuration, commands and events. For future release of CCS, support for native S7 communication will be added, using the libnodave open source library. We will discuss the current status of development, the functionality and features supported. As ITER is using SDD (Self Description Data) toolkit for I&C configuration management, we will also show the integration with this toolkit.

Speaker: Mr Jigneshkumar Patel (ITER Organization)

Slides ASYN_based_S7_PLC_driver.pptx

09:30 Introduction of device support for VMIVME-5565 and its usage at KEK

We utilize the distributed shared memory to realize fast and reliable communication among the separated EPICS IOC placed in our accelerator complex. We develop EPICS device support for the reflective memory, VMIVME-5565, and use it for our injection control system. Its functions are data synchronization and network interruption. We introduce how to control VMIVME-5565 and how we utilize on the injection control at KEK.

Speaker: Dr Hiroshi Kaji (KEK)

Slides 20160526.pptx

09:45 DEVELOPMENT OF ADVANCED DATA AND IMAGE ACQUISITION SYSTEMS USING RIO TECHNOLOGY AND EPICS: INTEGRATION IN ITER

IRIO Technology is a set of software tools developed for National Instruments Reconfigurable Input/Output (RIO) hardware, to simplify the development cycle and the integration of advanced data acquisition applications in EPICS. RIO devices are implemented using XILINX FPGAs. These reconfigurable devices have to be programmed using the LabVIEW for FPGA tool that works directly with the XILINX compiler. The main objective of this contribution is to provide a method to develop EPICS IOCs based on FPGA devices in which the user has defined a specific functionality. A traditional DAQ system is based on a specific hardware with vendor-defined functionalities. Therefore, the EPICS devices support is implemented according to these fixed specifications. If another hardware model with different functionalities is selected, the user needs to modify the EPICS device support. On the contrary, IRIO provides an EPICS device support capable of connecting with any implementation in the FPGA if the user has followed a set of rules, named profiles. Using these rules the user can develop different implementations using various resources: DMA channels to move acquired data, registers for input/output operations, etc. The use of IRIO shorten the development cycle because the user only needs to design the specific application for the FPGA using LabVIEW for FPGA. The LabVIEW templates provided with IRIO offer solution to the most common task of the acquisition (data tampering, DMA transfers, IO Module initialization, …) allowing the developer to focus only in the application specific tasks. Once the user obtains the bitfile from this process, it only needs to create the IOC calling the provided IRIO Device Support based on asynDriver and instantiate the PV templates provided according with the resources implemented in the FPGA. Therefore, the integration with EPICS is reduced only to a configuration process eliminating the necessity of developing code for device supports. IRIO tools also contain additional software packages to implement EPICS device support using ITER Nominal Device Support (NDS) approach or standalone applications directly using the RIO devices without the intervention of EPICS. IRIO software tools are currently integrated in ITER CODAC Core System as the main component to develop applications for the cRIO and FlexRIO devices in the ITER fast controller catalog. IRIO is distributed with a GPL V2 license to other research facilities using EPICS or other users interested in the development of advanced data acquisition applications.

Speakers: Mr Esquembri Sergio (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid), Dr Mariano Ruiz (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)

Slides UPMEPICSCM2016v5.pptx

10:00 Coffee

10:30 EEE - The ESS EPICS Environment

The European Spallation Source control system will have people from several locations and institutes contributing to the control system. This poses a challenge to managing and integrating the different contributions. Based on a less known but nevertheless well-proven idea of a well-known EPICS community member, we have developed an environment that allows for efficient distributed development, centralized support and simplified integration of the EPICS contributions.

Speaker: Timo Korhonen (European Spallation Source ESS AB)

Slides ESS-EPICS-Environment.pptx

10:45 ITER XML Framework for EPICS Configuration

Regular EPICS IOCs are configured using text files (database files, substitution files, ..). In the effort of standardization of controls development for ITER some of these files were re-expressed with XML equivalents. Areas of interest covered hardware description files (notably for I/O boards), EPICS device support, EPICS templates mechanism, PV definitions. Non-ITER specific XML schema for EPICS (XSD) was equally developed. The obtained files are not used to configure IOCs directly, but to provide site-wide static EPICS configuration for ITER controls configuration tools (SDD), as well as to export and exchange configuration data snapshots containing EPICS data. A similar approach is applied to other domains, such as CS-Studio configuration. This unified approach to describe controllers’ static configuration in XML allows for some benefits, such as cross-checking for data consistency between various tools, or easy configuration data conversion between tools. This contribution will show how XML descriptions for EPICS are used in the scope of ITER controls development.

Speaker: Mr Denis Stepanov (ITER Organization)

Slides EPICS_Collab_Meeting_-_[8]_Stepanov_-_ITER_EPICS_XML.pptx

11:00 ITER Packaging of the EPICS-based I&C Projects

EPICS-based applications have well established build system, which allows for certain flexibility when it comes to compilation and packaging of controllers software (I&C). Understanding that for ITER most of the EPICS based-projects will be built by off-site developers, not always in contact with the central integration team, ITER came up with a set of tools allowing for common approach for packaging of EPICS applications. The tools are implemented on top of Apache Maven using an ITER-specific plugin. When enabled, the plugin allows for simple one-line instructions in Maven’s build control file to perform common development tasks, such as creation of a new EPICS-based application, assignment of IOCs to applications, or invocation of EPICS build process. Deployment and testing tasks are facilitated with dedicated deployment and execution commands, supporting local or remote target controllers. Finally, for production deployment, packaging of EPICS applications into standard RPM packages is seamlessly supported, as well as automatic configuration of run-time startup scripts. Additionally, ITER contributed to a modular RPM-based packaging of the EPICS itself, oriented to support the described development process and different runtime installation profiles. All this allows I&C developers to focus on their application core logic and to reduce diversity in how EPICS applications are built, deployed and delivered to ITER.

Speaker: Mr Denis Stepanov (ITER Organization)

Slides EPICS_Collab_Meeting_-_[9]_Stepanov_-_ITER_EPICS_Packaging.pptx

11:15 The Development of IRMIS and Its Application at LANSCE

In this EPICS collaboration meeting, we present a complete IRMIS system at LANSCE of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The introduction focuses on the implementation and application of the relational database schema developed by the EPICS community. Partic- ularly, we discuss how to extend the existing database schema at our specific site. We also introduce the accelerator daily log management subsystem used to archive parameter logs. This subsystem not only saves our operators time and efforts but also makes archived infor- mation and parameters searchable. Finally, we propose some ideas to improve the present system.

Speaker: Mr Kanglin Xu (Los Alamos Natl Lab)

Slides distributed.pdf

11:30 Integration of ESS EPICS Environment at CEA Saclay

CEA Irfu Saclay is involved as a control system in-kind contributor to the ESS project. Since summer 2015, we are integrating the ESS EPICS Environment (EEE) and we are extending it to use it inside Docker containers. This talk is an overview of the integration process of EEE and of our current and future developments.

Speaker: Mr Nicolas Senaud (CEA Saclay/Irfu)

Slides EPICS-meeting-Lund-2016.pdf

11:45 The Canadian Light Source PV Monitor

The Canadian Light Source PV Monitor provides system status for the 400 IOCs in our EPICS network, and status and location for the 370,000 PV’s hosted by those IOC’s. Keeping the PV monitor up to date on all the PV’s that are new, lost, moved, restarted or multiply served requires rapid scanning of all known PV’s. We present a technique using purely native Python code that scans PV status at a rate of 10 PV’s per second per thread, and some of the benefits that having this information has given us.

Speaker: Ms Gillian Black (Canadian Light Source)

Slides gillian_black_lund.pptx

12:00 EPICs Heartbeat Extension for EPICs Network Monitoring at the CLS

The Canadian Light Source (CLS) PV Monitor provides system status for the CLS EPICs network, which consists of some 370,000 PVs hosted by 950 EPICs Applications running on 400 IOCs. The existing EPICs beacon, while useful, does not fully expose system status. We present an EPICs "heartbeat" that requires a 1-line code change in any EPICs Application. The CLS PV Monitor is able to determine instantaneous PV status for every PV hosted by a heartbeat-enabled EPICs Application, negating the need for database crawling or PV scanning. So far, the heartbeat has been rolled out to 40 CLS EPICs Applications.

Speaker: Mr Michael Bree (Canadian Light Source)

Slides michael_bree_lund.pptx

12:15 → 13:15 Lunch break

Lunch will be served at the meeting site

13:15 → 18:00 EPICS Collaboration meeting - main session: Thursday afternoon session

13:15 Fast Orbit Feedback at the Australian Synchrotron

The Australian Synchrotron Facility is has been in operation since 2006. Over the last couple of years, a Fast Orbit Feedback (FOFB) system for the Storage Ring has been planned, designed and is currently being developed. The presentation will provide a system overview together with more detailed information of three keys aspects. The EPICS IOC to FPGA interface, the algorithm validation using real time Linux running on seven CentOS 7 boxes, and the beam quality assessment package that will be used to assess how well the system behaves.

Speaker: Mr Andrew Starritt (Australian Synchrotron)

Slides 13_New_EPICS_2016B.pptx

13:30 The RF Control System for the SwissFEL

The design of the SwissFEL the RF system consists of four different modulator types from two manufacturers, Ampegon and Scandinova, supporting three different frequency bands, S-Band, C-Band, and X-Band. To enable the operator a transparent operation of all modulators without specific knowledge about the underlying device we present the EPICS RF control system, which provides a generic interface for all modulator types.

Speaker: Dr Kristian Ambrosch (Paul Scherrer Institute)

Slides The_RF_Control_System_for_the_SwissFEL.pptx

13:45 Overview over CEA Saclay RF test stands and use of the FMC IOxOS ADC3111 board

CEA Irfu Saclay is involved in the ESS collaboration through different packages. The ESS control-box is used for all the controls including those of the different RF test stands set up at Saclay, for a cryomodule demonstrator and the ESS RFQ coupler test. The control-box provides the IOxOS FMC ADC3111 acquisition card that will be used on the different CEA EPICS test stands. This card allows 8 signals to be measured with a sampling rate of up to 250MS/S. The EPICS driver was developed by PSI and ESS. Using the card in development situation will be presented as well as the measurement of the resources used by the card (CPU, memory, network ...) and its theoretical and practical limits.

Speaker: Mr Alexis Gaget (CEA)

Slides CEA_IoxosLund2016.pptx

14:00 PandA/ZEBRA-2: A collaboration to produce a flexible trigger, position-compare and -capture box

Beamlines at many synchrotrons are using continuous or fly scanning to reduce experimental dead time, and many facilities are using hardware to trigger detectors based encoder position, regular time interval, or some external source. In 2015, a collaborative project was started between Synchrotron Soleil and Diamond Light source to upgrade their existing systems (SPIETBOX and ZEBRA) with a new ‘Position and Acquisition’ platform, called PandA or ZEBRA-2. PandA/ZEBRA-2 is a 1U standalone system powered by a programmable Zynq FPGA-SoC for significant improvement of its predecessors’ existing processing, programmable functionality and system integration. It supports multi-channel digital I/O with 125MHz resolution and wide range of encoder protocols. An industry standard expansion slot provides interfacing to analogue and digital off-the-shelf boards or custom I/O modules. It offers Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for control systems integration and high-speed data acquisition. This presentation will describe the features of PandA/ZEBRA-2 and give a timescale for availability.

Speaker: Mr Chris Turner (Diamond Light Source)

Slides PandA_-ZEBRA-2_EPICS_collaboration_meeting_Lund_2016.pptx

14:15 Motion Control with Open Source EtherCAT

A motion control software for EtherCAT hardware using the open source EtherCAT master (www.etherlab.org) has been developed. The motion control software functionalities includes motor record functionalities: positioning, jogging, homing and soft/hard limits. Other functionalities supported by the motion control software are axis synchronization, a scripting language for custom synchronization of different axis, virtual axes, and interlocking. An EPICS model 3 driver is used to interface the motor record, and more development is ahead.

Speaker: Mr Anders Sandström (European Spallation Source ERIC)

Slides 17_ESSOSMCU_v0_1_7.pptx

14:30 Developing a control system for a laser system with EPICS

The Central Laser Facility (CLF) has been developing a novel high power and high repetition rate laser system for which Tessella Ltd has been developing the control system software using EPICS. Aside from the integration of a large amounts of various instruments, hardware equipment as well as 3rd party custom devices, the laser system also required a high level of automation, including machine safety, closed-loop algorithms and complex analysis between various instruments. In this presentation, you'll find out how we tackled the requirements capture, the software engineering practices we adopted as well as the technical challenged we faced and how we approached the design of the user interface.

Speaker: Dr David Michel (Tessella/CLF)

Slides david_michel_laser.pptx

14:45 Vacuum Control System of SSC-Linac

SSC-Linac is a linear accelerator injector of SSC in HIRFL.The vacuum control system is based on EPICS which is a real-time distributed control software.The Labview real-time VIs and EPICS VIs were used to design Input/Output Controller(IOC).The different kinds of CRIO modules were adopt in device layer,which can monitor the serial port data from vacuum gauges and contol vacuum valves.The whole control system can acquire vacuum data,control vacuum devices remotely,make the pressure value of the vacuum gauge and vacuum valve interlocked.It also keep the equipment work stable and the beam has a high quality.

Speaker: Mr Xiaojun Liu (Institute of Modern Physics)

15:00 Embedding MATLAB algorithms to EPICS IOCs

MATLAB is a powerful data processing and modeling tool, which is used in research organizations worldwide. As a rule, MATLAB is deployed as an integrated part of a well-developed computing and research data management environment. In particular, scientists and engineers at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland traditionally implement their numerous MATLAB applications for dealing with experimental data provided by the EPICS based control system. The data are delivered by EPICS Channel Access (CA) servers working on process control computers (IOC), which are distributed around the institutional computer network and communicate directly with a wide variety of measurement sensors and actuators. The applications acting as CA clients are executed on PC consoles running Linux or Windows OS. The main advantage of this approach is that MATLAB applications can easily be modified on demand, which is very important for developments and prototyping. However, the data flows between CA clients and servers experience unwanted time delays introduced by the nature of computer networks. As a result, the whole class of applications, which require fast and reliable time response (e.g. closed loop control tasks where the response time is a key issue) is not covered by this traditional approach. The paper presents an alternative way of the MATLAB code deployment that is based on applications directly bound to EPICS CA servers. Following this way, the performance and reliability of the entire system can be significantly improved, which makes it adequate for time response critical tasks.

Speaker: Dr Miroslaw Dach (M. Dach Consulting GmbH)

Slides 20_Matlab2GenSub6.pptx

15:15 Coffee break

15:45 caQtDM : future use of a display manager

caQtDM, the synoptic display manager developed at PSI supports multiple platforms: linux, windows, android, macOSX and ios in their native graphic mode. In its default mode of operation it gets the display description (.ui) files from the local file system. However it also supports a http based mode, i.e. it can get files provided by a web server, which are loaded into a local cache. This is the standard way of loading displays on mobile devices, but allows on other platforms a way of getting the display files, allowing therefore an easy versioning of display files. caQtDM supports through its loading of control system plugins, multiple control systems. Actually EPICS and bsread (a streaming protocol) are implemented, and other communication systems could be added through a plugin. This presentation will explain the different ways of using caQtDM, as well as other recently implemented features and improvements.

Speaker: Dr anton mezger (psi)

Slides #1-caQtDM_Lund_new.pptx

16:00 A PyQt framework for EPICS GUI Applications

At SLAC, there is interest in developing a framework that makes it easy to build powerful high level applications as well as simpler EDM-style displays using Python. The goals for this framework are easy integration of EPICS and other data sources, rapid development of high level applications, and a fast, responsive user interface. This presentation will describe the architecture of the framework and demonstrate a prototype we have developed.

Speaker: Mr Matthew Gibbs (SLAC)

Slides pydm.pptx

16:15 Qt Applications at TRIUMF

At TRIUMF we have developed a Qt-based Strip-tool and an Alarm Handler. They will be discussed and compared to the existing Motif-based EPICS applications.

Speaker: Dr Rolf Keitel (TRIUMF)

Slides 23-TRIUMF-QtApplications.pptx

16:30 CS-Studio Display Builder

The 'BOY' opibuilder is probably the most important component of CS-Studio, used successfully in many projects around the world. The display builder is an update that aims to stay highly compatible, but at the same time allows for better performance and long term maintenance.

Speakers: Kay Kasemir (ORNL/SNS), Megan Grodowitz (ORNL/SNS)

Slides DisplayBuilder_2016_05.ppt

16:45 CS-Studio Update

What's new in recent release, update on ongoing projects.

Speaker: Kay Kasemir (SNS)

Slides CS-Studio_Status-Kasemir-Berryman.pptx

17:00 MyRestore - The JLab Archiver-based Save and Restore System

At Jefferson Lab, we have implemented an archiver based system for saving and restoring EPICS PVs that replaces the previous BURT (Backup and Restore Tool) based system. The new system, MyRestore, consists of the Mya Archiver after which it's named, a MySQL database with web interface for managing restore set definitions, and command line and GUI tools for user interaction with the system. Additionally, we have implemented a daemon process to automatically restore IOCs when they get rebooted without requiring operator intervention.

Speaker: Theo Larrieu (Jefferson Lab)

Slides 26-MyRestore.pptx

17:15 MASAR: A Powerful Tool for Accelerator Commissioning and Operation

MASAR is an EPICS V4 service which does MAchine Snapshot, Archiving, and Retrieve. This software was originally developed at NSLS-II and has been one of the most important tools for NSLS-II accelerator commissioning and routine operation. Just like EPICS Channel Access (CA) which has CA client and CA server, MASAR system has MASAR client and MASAR server. The server takes machine snapshots, archives data in a relational database, and retrieves data from the database. The client provides a GUI that retrieves data, compares data with the live machine, and restores the machine with given snapshot data.

Speaker: Mr Yong HU (Brookhaven National Lab)

Slides masar-epics2016.ppt

17:30 Alarm Information in CS-Studio

Alarms form an essential part of any operations workflow, the ability to easily view the alarm and associated information can significantly improve the process of handling them. Two new projects were developed to allows easier access to current and historic BEAST alarm information. Alarm Datasource: Previously the only way to access information from the BEAST alarm service was through the dedicated alarmTree and the alarmTable views. A new pvmanager datasource (beast) now allows users to access alarm information via simple channels which can then be used in any cs-studio application including BOY. New screens can be created with the most pertinent alarm information from BEAST directly embedded in them. Alarm Message History: Using Apache camel all JMS messages produced by the BEAST alarm server and clients are logged into an elastic index. In any CS-Studio applicatoin, via a context menu command, users can now access the beast alarm history (alarm stats, acknowledge/unacknowledged actions) of any Process Variable.

Speaker: Mr kunal shroff (1984)

Slides Alarm_Information_in_CS-Studio.pptx

Friday, 27 May

08:30 → 11:45 EPICS Collaboration meeting - main session: EPICS Collaboration meeting - Day 3

08:30 A Websocket Microservice for EPICS

Web technologies are an increasingly appealing platform for building control system user interfaces. A python-based web service has been developed to transmit real-time channel access and PVAccess data over a websockets connection, to drive interactive web applications. Details of this service, and examples of web applications that use it will be presented.

Speaker: Mr Matthew Gibbs (SLAC)

Slides pycaserver.pptx

08:45 The EPICS Lua Script Record

Within currently released EPICS versions we have the EPICS calculation processing block, and also the EPICS subroutine processing block. The former is limited to execute only single line expressions, and the latter is very flexible but requires user development of low level C code. The domain of EPICS application development is rapid-prototyping, and so we foresee the need for a compromise solution in-between the two preexisting processing blocks. We will describe a new EPICS processing block based on the Lua embedded scripting language promising to offer improved functionality compared to the EPICS calculation processing block, and improved rapid-prototyping productivity compared to the EPICS subroutine processing block.

Speaker: Mr Jeff Hill (LANSCE)

Slides 02_LuaRecord_[Autosaved].pdf

09:00 Unit Testing in EPICS

Methods of testing software are always an issue. Despite a movement in industry to increase testing of software in all forms, development of academic software (including that for control systems) often lags in this regard [1]. When testing is accomplished, it is rarely automated, and often accomplished in an ad-hoc manner. This results in delays, inconsistency, and uncertainty in reliability. This talk outlines a series of methodologies and tools being undertaken at the Canadian Light Source in regards to testing of control system software. Of particular interest are a series of tools being developed to test EPICS systems prior to deployment, including those for unit testing of drivers, IOC applications, and custom code. [1] arXiv 1506.05272v1, June 2015

Speaker: Mr Juniper Willard Willard (Canadian Light Source)

Slides 03-Unit_Testing_in_EPICS4.pptx

09:15 An Accelerator Physics - Software Engineering Collaboration

Abstract: We outline the strategy for and summarize on the result of an effective collaboration for providing an on-line model for the commissioning of the FRIB (Facility for Rare Isotope Beams). For numerical efficiency, the model is based on the beam envelope formalism for Linacs from the 1980s and an elaborate RF cavity model developed by FRIB. The following topics will be covered: “Model-Based vs. Equipment Control”, “Why Yet Another Simulation Code?”, “The Merits of Automated Regression Testing”, “Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach”, “The Benefits of a Tightly Integrated Python Interface by Design”, “Rapid Prototyping and Re-Factoring”, “Software Infrastructure, and “Deliverables”.

Speakers: Johan Bengtsson (EPIC Consulting), Michael Davidsaver (EPIC Consulting)

Slides 04-Johan_Bengtsson.pdf

09:30 pvaccess gateway and IOC integration

Recent development work to create a pvaccess gateway and IOC integration.

Speaker: Michael Davidsaver (Osprey DSC)

Slides epics-201605.odp epics-201605.pdf

09:45 ChannelFinder : Directory service (V3)

ChannelFinder is a simple directory service that allows for the creation of hierarchical views on the flat namespace of EPICS. The ability to refer to a group of pv's via a query allows for greatly simplified client configuration. The ChannelFinder service version 3.0 upgrades included the switch to a nosql(ElasticSearch) backend resulting in improved performance along with additional search features. The new version also includes an epics module (cfStore) which enables the ioc's to directly populate the service.

Speaker: Mr kunal shroff (1984)

Slides ChannelFinder.pptx

10:00 Coffee break

10:30 Using V4 as a container for microservices

At SLAC, we have started using EPICS V4 as a container for various microservices. One service maintains a list of PV Names in the accelerator in redis; this information is used to drive a lookup service. The same information is also used to drive a V3 name service. A V4 hist service exposes information from the archiver; V4 is also used as the integration glue to expose information from the hist service thru the lookup service.

Speaker: Mr Murali Shankar (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Slides 07_Using_V4_as_a_container_for_microservices.pptx

10:45 Base 3.15 LSB

Less significant bits from the EPICS Base 3.15 series. Recent additions to the "current" release series that might have gone unnoticed, but deserve highlighting.

Speaker: Mr Ralph Lange (ITER Organization)

Slides Base_3.15_-_LSB.pptx

11:00 Recent Releases and Plans for Base 3.14, 3.15, 3.16 and Beyond

The usual round-up of release information and plans from the core developers.

Speaker: Mr Andrew Johnson (Argonne)

Slides 09_Base-Status-ESS.pdf

11:15 Mini-workshop summaries and closeout

Speaker: Timo Korhonen (European Spallation Source ESS AB)

Slides CloseoutSummary.pptx

12:00 → 14:00 ESS site visit

Visit to the ESS construction site