The BLM system is one of the most critical elements for the
protection of the LHC.
For this reason, its design must ensure a reliable, failsafe, secure
and fast system.
The complete system consists of: Detectors placed at various
locations around the
ring. Radiation tolerant tunnel electronics, the CFC cards, which
are responsible for
acquiring, digitising, and transmitting the data. Surface data
analysis cards, the
BLMTC cards, which receive the data via 2 km optical data links,
process, analyze,
store, and issue warning and abort triggers. Finally, on the far
end, the Combiner
cards at each crate collect those triggers together with status
information in order
to pass the abort signal to the Beam Interlock Controller system. In
this
presentation the BLM system will be explored giving emphasis at the
strategies
followed to provide and verify its design goals.