How beam driven operations optimize ALICE efficiency and safety

Abstract

ALICE is one of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN (Geneva, Switzerland).The ALICE DCS is responsible for the coordination and monitoring of the various detectors and of central systems, for collecting and managing alarms, data and commands. Furthermore, it's the central tool to monitor and verify the beam status with special emphasis on safety. In particular, it is important to ensure that the experiment's detectors are brought to and stay in a safe state, e.g. reduced voltages during the injection, acceleration, and adjusting phases of the LHC beams.Thanks to its central role, it's the appropriate system to implement automatic actions that were normally left to the initiative of the shift leader; where decisions come from the knowledge of detectors’ statuses and of the beam, combined together to fulfil the scientific requirements, keeping safety as a priority in all cases.This paper shows how the central DCS is interpreting the daily operations from a beam driven point of view. A tool is being implemented where automatic actions can be set and monitored through expert panels, with a custom level of automatization. Some routine operations are already automated, when a particular beam mode is declared by the LHC, which can represent a safety concern.This beam driven approach is proving to be a tool for the shift crew to optimize the efficiency of data taking, while improving the safety of the experiment.