Human Machine Interface for Data Acquisition Systems Applied in High Energy Physics

Abstract

Nowadays high energy physics scientists build and design systems that are complex in terms of the huge amount of subsystems and individual components. A single subsystem may consist of a few tens of thousands digital and analogue channels and sensors. As a result, the data rates captured in modern systems may result in gigabytes per second. Complex systems could generate various alarms and provide other diagnostic information. Consequently, a huge number of variables are needed to control and monitor the system. It could be a real challenge to provide access to all alarms and diagnostic information in systems composed of thousands of channels. In this sense, it is necessary to develop a Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) that will be simple enough to describe a complex system and detailed enough to present all the relevant information to the operators. The purpose of this paper is to describe and propose an HMI scheme able to obtain and present data from High Energy Physics systems. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate HMI for complex systems. The prototype HMI described is based on the demonstration PXIe-based Neutron Flux Monitor (NFM) developed by the Department of Microelectronics and Computer Science. This NFM is going to provide essential information for plasma operation in the ITER plant. The HMI involves a Graphical User Interface and an Alarm Management Scheme, all based on the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) framework. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) includes the use of several tools provided by the Control System Studio as well as JavaScript, rules and actions to dynamically present data to the operators. In regards to alarm management, a scheme is proposed to efficiently handle alarms by presenting the relevant information and controls to quickly react to alarms.