Speaker
Stefan Koestner
(CERN)
Description
An extensive RnD program together with an optimized detector design and
high performing readout electronics is essential for the success of an
experiment. However the required amount of work and complexity to
integrate a complete subdetector system into an experiment control system
at the level of an expert system is oftenly underestimated. We report here
on the layered software structures and protocols used by the LHCb
experiment to control their detectors and readout boards. The Experiment
Control System of LHCb is based on the commercial SCADA system PVSS II.
Readout boards which are outside the radiation area are accessed via an
embedded microcontroller which is connected to a large Local Area Network.
Finite state machines are introduced to facilitate the control of a large
number of electronics boards. The SPECS protocol which can transfer data
rates of up to 10 Mbit/s is used for control of the front end electronics.
Radiation tolerance of the SPECS slave is implemented by using Actel
ProASIC FPGAs and triple voting on all necessary registers.
Author
Stefan Koestner
(CERN)
