Implementation of a control protocol in the instrumentation field

Abstract

An operational protocol for controlling power converters and beam-instrumentation devices has been proposed at CERN. This is presented in another paper at this conference. A single operational model for a class of devices permits the definition of a unique set of control functions that must be exchanged between the control system and the specific device: the parameters of these functions are contained in messages of standard format. Although these definitions are independent of the controls architecture, an actual implementation must be tailored to match an existing control system. Our first implementation has been developed in the context of the CERN PS control system and concerns a set of four current-beam transformers of the PS Booster. In this paper we describe in particular the hardware and software development for the specific device anthe software control module that is general for a family of devices in the PS complex. The claimed advantages of using the protocol are discussed, i.e. the total independence between the control system and specific device implementation, the clean separation of responsibilities and the portability of devices.