HCAL DCS Tasks Schedule

2001:

Conceptual design of HCAL system
HV system under SCADA

Preliminary work on local DAQ, LV, laser and LED monitoring systems with non-final electronics.

2002:

Incorporation of LV and temperature monitoring in the system.
Follow up on 2001 projects; tests with cosmic triggers.

Preparations for the arrival of final electronics...

2003:

Final electronics arrival
Integration with TTC
Designing source driver control and local DAQ system

2004:

All development work must be finished.
Full operation in stand-alone mode, HCAL partition as operational as CMS DAQ/DCS permits.
Electronics burn-in with full control and monitoring mechanisms.

2005:

Full integration with CMS DAQ/DCS, debugging...

Tasks Overview

There are three main phases in the development of the system:

A. Test beam and Building 186 Phase
Each control system prototype or demonstrator will be used in the test beam for development studies and control/monitor functions and in Building 186 for quality control and control/monitor functions. These systems are completely stand-alone, but will be required to save data in a standard format for future inclusion in a DCS database. Remote operation or view access may or may not be included. DAQ functions are implemented as CAMAC, VME, or PC modules.
The key point in this stand-alone phase is the systems should anticipate integration into a CMS wide detector control system at a later time. Basic capabilities such as acting as a real time data server and accepting commands and parameter changes from the network are to be built into the designs.
B. Electronics Burn-in at Point 5 Phase
As the electronics systems now operate at 40 MHz, some of the stand-alone systems (primarily calibration systems) will be integrated with a crate-based DAQ system. An overall control panel and display system is needed which communicates with all of the stand-alone control systems and the in-crate DAQ processors. Also included in this phase is a database facility. Remote operation and view access is necessary. Some degree of integration with the global detector control system is desirable particularly to facilitate data logging and remote access over a network. Display utilities, if ready at this time, would also be very useful.
With advice and assistance from the CMS DCS team, this level of integration and centralised operations can be constructed in a way which facilitates moving to the next level of integration needed for routine operations with the accelerator and the rest of the CMS detector. On the other hand, it is very important to preserve the capability for operating in this crate-based phase throughout the life of the experiment. CMS global systems are not likely to be available during maintenance periods and running with the global system is usually not efficient for trouble shooting and testing.
C. Accelerator Operations Phase
This final phase features full integration with CMS detector control and trigger and data acquisition systems. Control panel, alarm and limit, and display applications can be executed on any DCS processor, local or remote. The data acquisition system performs calibrations an order of magnitude faster than the crate-based system in the previous phase.