Speakers
Description
Slow Control Systems (SCS) are electronic systems that are used to
setup, monitor and enable operation of complex hardware for physical experiments.
Detectors MPD (Multi-Purpose Detector) and BM@N (Baryonic
Matter at Nuclotron) at NICA (Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility)
complex are some implementations of this system. For the purpose of this
machinery it will be necessary to simultaneously operate on either 64 or
128 cabinet racks. It is required to design a software that controls the system
remotely because of hazardous environment for humans as there will
be strong radiation and electric field.
PACS numbers: PACS numbers come here
1. Introduction
Both MPD and BM@N detectors are still under construction, but it
is predicted to be 64 to 128 cabinet and size of one rack is 1000 x 800 x
42U. Such setup utilizes slave/master [1] configuration and is scalable which
allows to create the base software before it is completed. Because of substantial
size of the whole setup and SCS itself, ability to have remote access
is a crucial feature.
The other aspect that plays a huge factor is reliability, in order to start the
system, it is necessary to prepare the vacuum and very low temperature [2]
for elements that are being used in NICA[3] complex. Doing it takes long
time and is expensive. Because of it, we had to foresee how the development
of the whole system may go and adjust accordingly.
∗ Presented at ...
(1)
2”Remote toggle on off of Slow Control System cabinet racks at NICA complex” printed on August 31, 2017
Fig. 1. Run Panel, with lower level of
security and without avaibility to set
crucial parameters.
Fig. 2. Engineering Panel, with
higher level of security and ability to
adjust all parametres of the program.
The program for the purpose of turning on/off and monitoring the basic
parameters is written in graphic programming environment LabVIEW. NI
PXIe 8880 is the controller for master racks and NI cRIO 09039 is the controller
for slave racks. The program created, turns on/off and monitor the
basic parameters of the racks remotely.
For NI PXIe 8880 there are two different approaches. One is by providing
specific voltage to two pins located at the rare of the device. The other one
is by using windows function called WOL (Wake On Lan) [4] which sends
a magic packet of 6 bytes of all 1’s followed by 16 repetitions of the MAC
address for the controller you want to wake.
2. Results
The following program was created that allows us to turn on/off the
racks remotely. In order to reduce number of external devices it was decided
that WOL is better option than providing voltage. For shutting down
it was decided that windows console will be used and shutdown command
because of its simplicity and reliability.
The racks now, could be handled altogether or separately. The program
was initially created for 4 racks but it is modifiable to add more racks.
The final program is divided into two different password protected panels.
Run Panel (1) is for simple operations with predefined configuration.
It allows easy turn on/off of those racks. After clicking check status the
program simultaneously checks the state of all racks using ping function
”Remote toggle on off of Slow Control System cabinet racks at NICA complex” printed on August 31, 20173
in windows console. For convenience and further development delay time
of every ping and timeout can be both adjusted in engineering panel because
of every network different arrangement. It is arranged to be used for
non qualified worker and it also prevents user from any accidental changes.
However, engineering panel (2) allows to input and what is more important
save and load every racks data. Last but not least, for such considerate
setup size delay of turning on all the racks is unavoidable. This amount of
electrical devices needs to be turned on and off one by one. By reason of variety
of options setup can be both saved and loaded from specified XML file.
3. Conclusions
For now prototypes of four racks are built hence it is decided to keep
the programme also for this amount of racks and utilize the benefit of modularity
of SCS for further development.
Both software and hardware needs to be designed thoroughly. Mainly it is
required for it to work for ten years, so all the accepted solutions can be
reapplied in the event of any change or adjustment of whole machinery.
The next step in developing this program and making the control more remote
is setting up the VPN(Virtual Private Network) which will allow to
control it outside of NICA complex and include more people to further develop
the software and also collect acquired data. Also, turning on and off
delays can be more automatized by indicating them to run after the previous
one is toggled instead of manual delay time input.
REFERENCES
[1] Anthony Sanders Master slave interface. US 8,204,167 B2, Jun. 19, 2012
[2] D. Dabrowski, V. Golovatyuk, M.J. Peryt, V. Babkin, K. Bolek, K. Kozlowski,
K. Roslon Gas system for MPD Time-Of-Flight detetor. Acta Physica Polonica
B Proceedings Supplement No 2, Vol. 9 (2016)
[3] G. Trubnikov, A. Butenko, V. Kekelidze, H. Khodzhibagiyan, S. Kostromin,
V. Matveev, I. Meshkov, A. Sidorin, A. Sorin, The NICA projet at JINR.
Proceedings of IPAC2016, Busan, Korea
[4] Chang-hyun Ryu Method and apparatus for controlling power of computer system
using wake up LAN (local area network) signal. US 6,591,368 B1, Jul. 8,
2003
