The roadmap towards fully operational LHC controls will be
discussed. Controls for
beam operation are similar to other CERN accelerators. From the
experience gained
in the TI8 tests, with milestones such as the commissioning of LEIR,
TI2, the
controls for LHC will be realised with the same building blocks as
used today.
Hardware commissioning will provide a different challenge with an
large scale use
of industrial solutions for accelerator control. Already long before
first
injection into the LHC, controls for vacuum, cryogenics, quench
protection,
powering interlocks and power converters must be fully operational.
Current plans for the installation and commissioning of the controls
infrastructure
will be explained and the main aspects highlighted.
The generic controls facilities required for the commissioning of
the hardware and
for beam operation will be discussed with emphasis on how the work
advances in the
different domains (post-mortem, logging, alarms, timing, specific
applications,
etc.).
The requirements, in particular for Hardware Commissioning, and how
they translate
into existing controls and / or technical specifications will be
addressed.
The presentation is based on the summary of a AB-CO meeting (CO-Day)
that is being
organised in December.