Tracks

Please click the track bar to drop down further information

Experiment Control | Chair: Markus Janousch and Karen White

This track focuses on control systems and data acquisition for user facility experiments including photon and neutron beam lines. Experiment control systems must interact with a variety of instrument hardware, sample environment equipment, detectors and data acquisition electronics. These control systems must be flexible and easy to use for experiments with quick turnaround and a heterogeneous user community. 
Topics for this track include: 
- Experiment automation, scanning, sequencing and run control 
- Sample environment control including robotic sample changers 
- User interfaces and remote monitoring 
- Live feedback and online data reduction and visualization 
- Detector and data acquisition interfaces 
- Data formats and metadata systems 
- Data management 
- User information systems and databases

Personnel Safety and Machine Protection | Chair: Mark Herron and Young Gi Song

This track presents the role and implications of personnel, environmental and machine protection systems in large, experimental physics control systems. It will further consider Patient Protection Systems where radiation is used in the diagnosis and treatment of patients. For all of these, topical areas, such as the following, will be included: 
Choice and Application of Standards: This considers the selection of international standards (Including IEC 61508, IEC 51161, …) for function safety, and their application in the specification, design and life cycle of such systems. 
Aspects of Safety/Protection Systems: This area discusses topics such as the specification/design/implementation/commissioning processes and details, interlock considerations, interactions with other facility controls systems, required reliability, machine up-time, availability and maintainability. 
Operational Experience/Lessons learned: What has gone wrong/can go wrong in control systems and what can we learn, including incorrect specifications, omitted safety requirements, random hardware failures, systematic hardware failures, software errors, common cause failures and environmental influences? 
Human Factors: This area addresses ensuring that the man/machine interface contributes positively to successful, reduced-risk operation and ease of use.

Software Technology Evolution | Chairs: Juan Carlos Guzman and Gianluca Chiozzi

This track covers what is new or in plan for control systems and the software technologies to build them. This includes new methods in software engineering as well as new technologies and products that can be used in controls. Of particular interest is experience gained and lessons learned from applying these new approaches in practical software development projects. The following topics are discussed:
Control System Evolution: New control system frameworks and evolution of existing control system toolkits (EPICS, TANGO, DOOCS, ACS ...). 
Middleware Technology: Reports on performance and scalability of middleware and the usage of web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA).
Advanced Software Development Techniques: New programming languages (Scala, CoffeeScript, etc.), design and code for easy debugging, refactoring in practice, model-driven development, domain-specific languages and code generation.
Real-time Control Software: Techniques for the development on and interfacing to real-time controllers, including advances in real-time OSs, Arduino, OPC-UA, Programmable controllers (PLC/PAC), LabVIEW, embeddable programming languages (matlab).
Note: GUI toolkits, web tools and integration of low and high-level components are covered in other tracks.

User Interfaces and Tools | Chairs: Noboru Yamamoto and Allan Casey

This track focuses on how human beings interact with computer-based systems. This includes how humans control hardware as well as how humans interact with software tools. Topics covered in this track will include: 
Data visualization tools used to comprehend large amounts of data (such as archive viewers, dashboards, overview panels, plotting tools, and high precision graphics) 
Interface building tools (such as CSS, JDDD, and Web tools) 
Reporting tools (such as electronic log books, user feedback collection tools, and alarm handlers) 
Mobile device development to enable remote operation and monitoring 
Collaboration tools facilitate teams working together over geographic distances by aiding communication 
Emerging interface trends (such as virtual displays, intelligent data display, and natural language processing) 
Model-based tuning, closed loop incorporation of modelling results to real-time control

Project Status Reports | Chairs: John McLean and Ryotaro Tanaka

The Status Reports track presents an overview of new or upgraded experimental physics facilities with a control system perspective. Status Reports typically cover the stages of a project from the conceptual proposal through commissioning. Appropriate candidate topics include reports on facilities such as particle accelerators and detectors, fusion devices, light sources, telescopes and gravitational wave detectors. Presentations should include descriptions of the most challenging issues facing the facility. Projects that involve novel or unusually complex or demanding control systems are strongly encouraged.

Control System Upgrades | Chair: Timo Korhonen and Oscar Matilla

The control systems often experience various changes in order to carry out new experiments and get the maximum performance from the scientific installation. This track focuses on the enlargement, modifications or implementation of new capabilities in existing control systems or existing platforms and frameworks, by using new techniques and covering new domains. It also assesses the change control process and the optimization of the transition to the upgraded systems.

Data Management, Analytics & Visualisation | Chair: Kevin Brown and Matt Bickley

This track focuses on the methods and systems people employ to manage large datasets, and perform data processing and visualization of those datasets. This includes issues arising from the storage, processing, indexing, search, retrieval, analysis, and visualization of these datasets. This also includes the hardware and software architectures, networks and tools implemented to manage these issues. Relevant work will include efforts focused on building distributed database systems (e.g., Hadoop, YARN, Spark, Casandra, Hbase, etc.), data mining techniques, and methods and systems for analysis and visualization.

Integrating Complex or Diverse Systems | Chair: Enrique Blanco and Gordon Brunton

The large physics facilities are commonly planned to operate for several decades that duration shall be added to the construction time between the conceptual design and the first operation.
During this long lasting period control systems will be built by the aggregation of heterogeneous components that will oscillate between home-made, coming from the open-source community or from off-the-shelf from a commercial company according to the to date best practices, political decision, financial or resources consideration, etc..
This track aim to tackle the issues and share experiences related to the design the construction and the evolution of flexible or agile control system, it covers architectures, technologies and methods
Then you may help the community answering the following question:
• What were the driving paradigms to design your agile control system?
• What was the best method for creating control system coupling multi-level analysis, i.e., what is the level of integration required between process control and the protection and safety systems?
• What is the level of customization needed when using commercial off-the-shelf components?
• What is the best approach for dealing with heterogeneous components and real-time performance requirements when users and systems span long physical distances?
• How should scalability issues be tackled?
• How are low-level controls components integrated together and coordinated at a higher level?
• Is the internet of thing an effective solution or a major problem
• How can includes the maintainability in this evolutionary design

Control System Infrastructure | Chair: Dennis Nicklaus and Niko Neufeld

This track addresses the technologies, tools and methodologies for optimizing performance, managing resources, and addressing off-normal situations across the infrastructure of networks, processing nodes, data storage systems and databases. It includes issues related to managing and accessing large archived data sets, managing power usage, cyber security, and the role of technologies such as virtualization as well as unified operating system installation and configuration of control system computers to meet these aims. Topics covered can also include incorporating cloud computing into an infrastructure or extending a control system to embrace a broader variety of inputs as encapsulated by the concept of the "Internet Of Things" (IOT).

Feedback Systems, Tuning | Chair: Jean Michel Chaize, Marco Lonza and Changbum Kim

Modern experimental physics facilities are very complex machines that cannot be operated without the use of sophisticated systems executing tasks automatically, not manageable manually by physicists or operators. 
Examples are optimization tools for tuning the machines and improve their performance, or feedback/feed-forward systems assuring the stability of critical parameters during operation. In some cases these systems require dedicated real-time platforms with deterministic communication systems and the usage of FPGAs.
Of particular interest are systems improved by providing them with human-like capabilities such as learning and adaptation, which can make use of the acquired knowledge and previously gained experience to understand and interpret behaviours or phenomena, and eventually help humans to solve complex problems.
Topics covered in this track include:
• Software or FPGA based feedbacks and feed-forward systems
• Use of models and simulators
• Tuning and Optimization techniques
• Predictive and Adaptive correction systems
• Fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms, artificial intelligence

Hardware Technology | Chair: Javier Serrano, Kazuro Furukawa and Dapeng Jin

While any systems cannot function by only one of hardware or software, innovative hardware technologies are introduced to enable new paradigm. 
This track focuses on such hardware design as applied to the operation of large physics facilities, with an emphasis on collaborative efforts among laboratories and companies using Open Source Hardware practices. 
The following topics will be highlighted: 
Hardware platforms: microTCA.4, xTCA, FMC, VME, VXS, VPX, PCI/PCIe, PXI/PXIe... 
Printed circuit board (PCB) design 
Programmable logic design, System-on-Chip (SoC) design, including embedded processors in Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) 
Data links for distributed controls and data acquisition 
Radiation-hardened design 
Collaborative design tools 
Reliability and Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) 
Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) systems, both open source and proprietary 
Integrated self-diagnosis 
Upgrade and maintenance strategies

Timing and Sync | Chair: Stephane Perez and Eric Bjorklund

This track covers timing and synchronization issues in data acquisition and controls. 
Issues include all the need for long-term stability and high precision.
Papers should demonstrate the way precision, stability and jitter are handled in applications that need femtosecond as well as several seconds, possibly, in the wide area up to kilometers range.
The following elements are of particular interest:
    Network Time Protocol (NTP)
    Standard protocols for timing systems (IEEE 1588, 802.1AS)
    Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
    The use of hardware platforms like the CERN White Rabbit, or MRF event system
    Protocols for clock distribution
    Use of transmission technologies like cable, optical or wireless
    Hardware effects (EMC, radiation effects, transmission delays, temperature and pressure effects)
    Delay compensation
    Software interfaces

Systems Engineering, Project Management | Chair: Chris Marshall and Liz Van der Heever

This track encompasses two areas. 
The first area is Systems Engineering techniques and case studies used to manage complex engineering projects over full life cycles will be discussed. Key issues to be addressed include requirements and interface management, validation and verification processes, reliability, availability and maintainability, and construction, commissioning and operational logistics. Topics also include systems engineering design optimization methods, and risk management tools, and system breakdown structure (interface) optimizations. Technical and discipline integration across broad areas such as controls engineering, scientific equipment and industrial engineering, physics modelling, project management. Systems engineering ensures that all likely and high risk impact aspects of a project or system are evaluated, and integrated into a whole into an optimized system including lifecycle phases of design, fabrication, test, and operations. 
In the second area, Project Management includes schedule, cost, and quality assurance. In addition, good management practices within our community with respect to project management tools coming from industry that work in our community will be discussed, as well as quality assurance in terms of how to meet the needs of the customers and users. Collaborative project management encompasses sharing a goal between people in different institutes and countries including contributions in kind, as well as between institutes and industries. How collaboration can influence the system is considered, along with managing issues and success. Examples of good collaboration could be presented; what is working and perhaps what has not stood the test of time in a changing environment.