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Dear All,
To distribute the meeting notes, the topic is listed, along with a brief
description, an e-mail address and a URL where possible. Please contact the
presenter directly if you would like more information on the topic.
List of Attendees also attached. This list was only passed around on the
last day. I tried to add everyone that missed the last day. I tried to not add
those casual attendees - that were not registered. My apologies for either
including or excluding your name - contrary to your wishes.
Before going through the agenda, I would like to solicit comments about the
meeting. We started these meetings as work sessions for collecting requirements,
settting priorities, discussing design, reviewing problems and just having
an oppurtunity to talk about any technical issues. As the collaboration is
now over 50 projects large, these meetings have drifted away from this -
but not in any clear direction. I would greatly appreciate any advice or
observations about these meetings. What would you like to get from them -
any ideas about format or organization - any comment on length - any
ideas about content. In this last meeting, we covered a broad spectrum
of topics - from advanced control to I/O bit manipulation. We had two
workshop type sessions - one to discuss the problems associated with detectors
and one to discuss archiving requirements. All attendees should view these
meetings as an oppurtunity to discuss problems that exist, form work groups
around similar interests, solicit opinions from the community, give feedback
to help improve the usefulness of existing tools, offer new approaches and
solutions that others in the community could use, have a little fun, or
solicit training. Should we have smaller/ parellel sessions? Thanks for taking
the time to consider these questions. As always, we will attempt to build
future meeting agendas based on your input.
Regards,
Bob
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Brief Notes on the topics covered during the meeting:
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Communication/API services in the EPICS environment
*Portable CA Server - Jeff Hill - [email protected]
The portable CA server is nearing completion and available in
Alpha release. It is currently running under UNIX. It is being
incorporated into the Gateway being developed at ANL. The
discussion covered the API for making any data store available
to the EPICS channel access protocol - and therefore available
to all clients. This is one method for extending the EPICS
architecture to incorporate legacy systems and/or data stores
other than the EPICS database.
*Gateway Update - Jeff Hill (for Jim Kowlakowski - [email protected])
The Gateway is being developed to provide a single connection
into the principal control network for clients that do not
require real-time connections - and whose traffic has a lower
priority than the operation of the machine. The requests of
all low priority clients are connected through this gateway.
Many connection to the same pararmeters will result in a single
request to the control network.
*CDEV Update - Chip Watson - [email protected]
CDEV is an API being developed to provide a higher level view
to the flat database architecture of EPICS. In addition, CDEV
provides access to other data stores by adding services to the
CDEV API. Currently, CDEV clients include some high level analysis
tools. The services include: channel access, ACE, and the SLAC
data access. This API provides a decoupling of the source of the
data from the high level applications to monitor, analyze and
control the process.
off of - http://www.cebaf.gov/cdev
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*WWW Documentation
A brief dicsussion was held to determine the state of the documentation
and in particular - what trans-oceanic issues needed to be handled.
It was stated that the mirror site in England was not always a good
alternative in the rest of Europe. Other mirror sites will be supported.
We will wait to see where these will be.
The other major issue discussed here is paper size. Roland Mueller
of BESSY has provided a proposal - the authors need to support it...
http://www.bessy.de/comput/FramePrintOuts.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*CVS Bug Fix releases
A brief disucssion was held to derive a policy for bug fix releases.
It is the position that major releases of EPICS base will continue
to go through rigorous test and be released about once per year. Bug
fixes will be made available between major releases with some cursory
testing. The problems will be documented so that any site wanting a
release can choose between the rigorously tested version and the
more recent "fixed" version. Bug releases will be made no more
frequently than once per month. Any more pressing fixes can be
obtained and built at your local site.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
High Level Client Applications
*MultiKnob Application - Walt Akers - [email protected]
MutliKnob is a CDEV application that allows users to connect to a named
set of CDEV devices using a Compound Device service. Compund Device
service allows this service to be connected to itself - allowing nested
MultiKnob applications. The value of the devices can then be adjusted
using a single control while maintaining a defined relationship.
*Correlation Plot - Dave Wetherholt - [email protected]
This application (in conjunction with X-Act) allows users to setup
data taking experiments. It gives control over an arbitrary number
of nested controllers and takes data after each change. The data
can then be analyzed (plotted) as a function of time - or a function
of other data. The data taken engine is a CDEV client.
related doc - coming soon to the CEBAF WWW site
*SDDS Update - Claude Saunders - [email protected]
Self-Describing Data Sets is a file format that is used at APS for
passing data between modular data collection, analysis and visualization
tools. An argument rich set of command line utilities are used to
aid the accelerator physicists in trouble shooting and optimizing the
operation of the accelerator. As useful scripts are created - they
are converted to operational tools by providing a tcl/TK GUI to the
script for ease of use. The file format also facilitates modular
extensions.
related docs @:http//www.aps/anl.gov/asd/oag/aoghome.html
*Bumpless Reboot - Bob Dalesio - [email protected]
A set of routines were presented that save ascii save sets - and
then either restore them into running databases through channel
access or into newly loaded databses before reboot using the
static database access library. These are raw routines with no
user interface. The configuration file and savefile are straight
ascii.
doc@ http://www.atdiv.lanl.gov/doc/epics/training/Slides.html
*Framework for an Online Data Flow Prototype - applied to data acquisition
- Joe White - [email protected]
This package provides a flexible, transparent transport mechanism among
sections of user code. It presents a state machine API, a set dynamic
of configuration blocks, and a set of monitoring blocks to any external
systems. The state machine API should be driven by a run control system
since the framework does not have any internal automatic state machine
model running. The configuration and monitoring blocks are intended for
user parameters such as calibration parameters and counter limits.
Internally, the framework allows the user code to access a set of data
flow services, such as event buffer management. The kind of transport
(called a link) connecting blocks of user code can range from a simple
direct call forward to a socket connection across the network. Since
the kind of link is transparent to user code, a given block can be
located in a separate process or moved to another machine by only
changing the setup, recompiling, and reloading. A link can also begin a
chain, for example by accepting an interrupt from hardware, or end a
chain, for example by dumping the data to tape and freeing the
associated event buffer.
As part of this project, a run control and configuration driver
application (called Orc for Online Run Control) was developed to
interface with the Odf framework. This application uses several snl
state machines with EPICS database components for flow control and gui
control.
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/BFROOT/doc/www/Computing/Online/Online.html
*Feedback System for Tristan Light Source Study - Mimashi Toshihiro
- [email protected]
The beam orbit feedback system was designed and built for the TRISTAN
Light-Source Study. Some of the experiments which use TRISTAN Main Ring
as a synchrotron-light source require beam position and slope stability
at the light source. The beam orbit feedback system eliminate the
vibration of the beam at the center of undulator. The feedback system
was composed of 2 single path beam monitors, 4 of each horizontal and
vertical steering magnets. The control system was built with EPICS. The
frequency of the feedback loop was set to 100 Hz. And the feedback
system satisfied the tightest requirement from the experiments. They
are +- 1500 um position stability and +- 15 urad slope stability in
horizontal direction, and +-50 um and +-5 urad in vertical direction.
*Fast Feedback for CEBAF - Mahesh Chowdhary - [email protected]
A 60 Hz prototype feedback system to regulate the beam energy
has been beta tested at CEBAF. The 60 Hz loop was run over
ethernet through a high priority dedicated vxWorks task. The
optimal control algorithm for this system was developed in
state space formalism of Modern Control Theory. The closed loop
bandwidth of this system running at 60 Hz rate is 7 Hz.
This feedback system will be implemented to run at a rate around
1.2 kHz in order to suppress all primary components of disturbances.
The highest noise frequency is 180 Hz.
http://www.cebaf.gov/~mahesh contains papers on this system
*The accelerator modelling codes Structured Accelerator Design/Strategic
Accelerator Design (SAD) - Mimashi Toshihiro -
(for Noboru Yamamoto [email protected])
These codes are developed in the KEK accelerator department. SAD treats
many of beam dynamics calculations, ie. beam tracking, optics
calculation, etc. We used SAD for TRISTAN accelerator operation. The
global orbit correction, local orbit correction, optics generation,
bump creation, tune adjustment, chromaticity correction etc, have been
done with SAD. Since SAD will take a very important role in the KEKB
accelerator control, it was connected to EPICS. Usually SAD input is
ASCII file. For example when we correct the beam orbit, SAD read beam
position monitors data and current steering magnet kick angle from
ACSII file, write corrected steering magnet kick angle and expected
orbit in the file. Now SAD was modified to read steering magnet kick
angle and beam position monitors value directly from EPICS channels and
it can set steering magnet kick angle directly. The graphical user
interface provides the operators with easy access to these modelling
codes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*PCs - in EPICS (hosted)
The purpose of this session was to determine what directions people
were considering with regard to PC technology - mass market - low
price hardware and software. The question was posed - hoping to form
some teams to work together or at least avoid overlap...
channel access client ported to Windows NT and windows '95
fully operational for a long time
LBL - Chris Timassi - [email protected]
benchmarks at APS beamlines reported to show ~Sparc10 thoughput
port of IOC code to the 486/Pentium running vxWorks
Build ioc core using EPICS make files - largely complete
Run the database on the Pentium/vxWorks - working
Portable Channel access server to the Pentium - just starting
Performance of database roughly equivalent to the 68060
LANL - [email protected]
APS will reintegrate the build/install changes needed
port of IOC code to the PowerPC
KEK - Noboru Yamamoto [email protected]
- scheduled to test this year
APS - Jim Kowlakowski - [email protected]
- board in hand - needs some time
BNL (Brahms) - Karim Ashktorab - [email protected]
- board in hand - needs WRS delivery
video processing with Pentium and video boards on the PCI bus
DESY - Matthias Clausen - [email protected]
port IOC database functiuonality to NT (very small/informal effort)
LANL - [email protected]
X-display running on a PC from a UNIX platform
Many projects are already doing this....
move display manager to windows NT running X
Again - please announce interest (ability to do the work)
create a development environment under WNT for databases
LANL - Capfast - should already work - untested
have a WNT display manager
APS / LANL / Tate - want to start work here any others?
[email protected]
port the portable ca server to the NT environment
MIT - Coles Sibley - [email protected]
Native displays on NT/W96
Using Delphi, IDL, Visual Basic, PV-Wave
APS/CATs - Mark Engbretson - [email protected]
In the long term - the portable CA server, display tools under NT,
and a database port to NT (or use of a cohabitating vxWOrks and NT)
will lead to the ability to run a single box solution that can be
scaled up or integrated into a large installation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
*EPICS software distribution homepage - Bakul Banerjee - [email protected]
Bakul presented the organization of the distribution page, the
documents and the verification process for obtaining a password.
A very nice web site is set up to support distribution at
http://epics.aps.anl.gov/xfd/WWW/xfd/SoftDist/Welcome.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Applications framework - Bjorklund, Kraimer, Wright, Lewis, Tang
EPICS distributions do not include a standard environment for developing
applications. These frameworks are crucial to the productive use
of these tools by those responsible for getting the applications done.
This decision should be made in an informed manner with those
responsible for the maintenance of the EPICS and project application
codes fully involved.
Four prominent environments were represented. They include:
CEBAF - scalable - independent versions for IOCs fast fallback
Johnny Tang - [email protected]
http://devserve.cebaf.gov/~epics/cebafEpicsAppArch.html
BaBar - installations distributed over many sites - small apps at each
Joe White - [email protected]
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/BFROOT/doc/www/Computing/Online
/Reference.html
UAE - flexible - in use on many medium size sites (~4K signals)
Nick Reese - [email protected]
William Lupton - [email protected]
Eric Bjorklund - [email protected]
APS - large installation -
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solutions to application problems at various labs
*BESSY Status
-EPICS experiences @ BESSY (Europe): Quick start up, no serious
problems so far
-Graphical Server + API for GUI generation using Motif (BESSY~II)
Any required Widget can be embedded, abstact, event driven API with
no knowledge of the presentation layer needed, code is independent
of the graphical paradigm. It uses full cdev functionality.
generic graphics client allows to execute scripts containing cdev calls
-Configuration tool based on ora_tcl
-CAN device Support/Driver
Multi-drop industrial standard I/O bus using the VME-CAN2 interface
card
*NASA Wind Tunnel Applicaitons - Steve Syrett - [email protected]
A short presentation was given on the control of wind tunnels.
Most of this discussion focused on the plan at NASA to port
the portion of EPICS currently running under vxWorks to LnyxOS.
Connections will be made with Kazuro Furukawa, who took a look
at this port while at CERN. The dicsussion also lead to a plan
to first port channel access and the database into a single
memory space (i.e. no thread protection) and limit the scope to
determine what functions rely on the linking loader.
*DESY Status - Matthias Clausen - [email protected]
-Common Driver Interface - http://herao1.desy.de/heras1/cdi_intro.html
This common driver interface simplifies the integration of new drivers
-CAN-CDI driver - http://herao1.desy.de/heras1/CAN_Driver.html
This is an industrial standard multi-drop I/O bus that uses the CDI
-Power supply record - http://herao1.desy.de/cc/www/doc/pscdoc.html
for controlling and synchronizing control of various types of power
supplies
- Fermilab Internet Rack Monitor as an IOC
http://herao1.desy.de/cc/www/doc/irm.html
a low cost IOC with a 68040/64 16-bit AI/8 12-bit AO/64 binary in or
outs/arrays on all 64 AIs/latched clock events
*Message Based functionality in a Value Based System
- Andy Foster RGO [email protected]
The hierarchical structure of the Gemini software system implies that
commands will be sent between EPICS databases running in separate IOC's.
It is a requirement of the software system that we are able to
download complete observational configurations between the top-level
Observatory Control System and lower-level systems. In order to meet
these requirements, 4 new 'soft' records have been written. These are
the APPLY, CAD, CAR and SIR records.
CAD - Command Action Directive
CAR - Command Action Response
SIR - Status Information Record
Typical use form a commanding system would be
(1) Write the data associated with each command to the appropriate CAD.
(2) Send the directive START to the APPLY record.
(3) The commanding system monitors the VAL field of the APPLY to see if
each command has bee accepted or rejected by the CAD records.
(4) CAR record is the state machine that reflects the status of the
command. Typically this is a hierarchy of CAR records.
For further info: ftp.ast.cam.ac.uk:/pub/ajf in the file: cadcar.tar.Z.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Physics detector workshop - Pabien Perriollat & Helfried Burckhart
-This workshop was an oppurtunity to talk about where EPICS
fits and does not fit into large detector run control.
Areas cited:
-Hierarchical state control - sequencer provides this functionality
-Exception Handling - 3rd alarm layer needed - an easy modification
-Idea of namespace for large arrays of similar items -
This provokes the most discussion. There were several approaches
mentioned - database array records - large name space - CDEV
groupings - this problem dominates the issue of applying EPICS
to large detector controls.
-Handling Name space and dynamic connections for 1 million signals
This was discussed as part of SSC earlier. Distributed name
server - name caching in the client - were some of the solutions
for handling the runtime issue. Managing the large name space
is also an issue to address.
-It would be worthwhile to convene a group to address these issues
directly and in more detail.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
*3.13 Changes for 3.13 - Marty Kraimer [email protected] and
Bob Dalesio [email protected]
-The database and record support are now loaded as ASCII.
-All address fields are available over channel access as strings to
read and modify. NOTE: not all device support will react
propoerly to this modification - but most should - TEST!
Also NOTE: lockset will be locked for 5 msec (100 records 25MHz 040)
during the change
-New address link options:
FWDLNK 's to channels in other IOCs that reference teh .PROC field will
cause the record to be processed
OUTLINK now supports a -CA which makes the link a channel access link
even if the record is in the same IOC.
INLINK now support CA and CP - CP says process when a monitor occurs
- Some impacts
Database addresses that are channel access links are > 2x faster
Channel access client access to the database is 20% faster
Database fast links are 15% slower
The link fields were reduced in size. Less memory usage.
-Locally developed record support will need to use the new
database access routines for processing address fields
off of: http://epics.aps.anl.gov/asd/controls/epics/EpicsDocumentation
/WWWPages/EpicsFrames.html in RelNote.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Static Database Tools - Rozelle Wright [email protected] and
Tatsuro Nakamura - [email protected]
http://www.atdiv.lanl.gov/doc/epics/epicshm.html
- dbt -- A command line tool (optionally interactive)
to invoke static database functions to check the validity of databases
and create additions to edb.def (a capfast configuration file)
from new records in .db format.
- db2capsym -- a command line tool to create capfast graphical symbols
from new records in .db format.
- e2db -- An upgrade of the e2sr tool to transform capfast edif files to
database files in .db format.
-An alpha version of these available by anonymous ftp in the very near
future.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*How to handle an output that could change from another source
This is just a note to point out that the all output record/device
support does not read the value back periodically to determine if it was
changed by a local controller. To implement this - either some database
logic - or changes to the record device support are required. As long
as the changes are made through the database - it is OK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Data Archiving - Note that a working group is forming to address this
- send interest in participating to [email protected]
*Archiver Requirements - Matt Bickley - [email protected]
Requirements for data archiving were presented. These requirements will
be the functional requirements for an archvier that is being designed
for CEBAF. It is the goal to make this a general useful tool and have
a group from several laboratories contribute to the effort. Please
review and comment on the talk taht is posted on the web. If you have
resources to work on this - please contact Matt. The document will be
available for final comment soon.
http://devserve.cebaf.gov/external/talks/ArchiverReq.html
*Archiving at DESY - Matthias Claussen - [email protected]
An archiver is developed in a modular fashion that includes pieces
for archiving in the IOC with an archive record as a local buffer,
archiving any channels (including the archive record) to files that
keep a channel per file. The archiver runs on both VMS and UNIX.
The archive retrieval routines provide data as a service over CORBA
to a CORBA client that provides a archive viewer to the operator. The
archive viewer provides for channel selection, plotting, rotation,
and a rich collection of 2-D and 3-D plots written in IDL. It is
currently archving 2900 @ 1 Hz.
docs @ http://herao1.desy.de/cc/www/info/archive.html
off of http://herao1.desy.de/epics_add_ons.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*CAMAC device support improvements - Eric Bjorklund [email protected]
(Johnny Tang - [email protected]) (Mark Rivers - [email protected])
waveform record support is added
Hytec VSD2992 serial driver and KSC 2917/3992 parrallel driver supported
cclnk routine added, LAMs supported, diagnostics added
available over anonymous ftp: thoth.atdiv.lanl.gov /pub/epics/camac.tar
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
attendees:
Eric Bjorklund [email protected]
Marty Kraimer [email protected]
Bob Dalesio [email protected]
Toshi Mimashi [email protected]
Chip Watson [email protected]
Matthias Clausen [email protected]
Jeff Hill [email protected]
Steve Lewis [email protected]
Roland Mu"ller [email protected]
Richard Sachtschale [email protected]
Fred Carter [email protected]
Don Dohan [email protected]
Ed Desmond [email protected]
Bret Goodrich [email protected]
Andy Foster [email protected]
Bakul Banerjee [email protected]
Hamid Shoaee [email protected]
Jeff McDonald [email protected]
Terry Heuring [email protected]
David Myers [email protected]
Fabien Perriollat [email protected]
Tim Mooney [email protected]
Claude Saunders [email protected]
Janet Anderson [email protected]
Helfried Burckhart [email protected]
Kagarmanov Albert [email protected]
Graham Waters [email protected]
Rolf Keitel [email protected]
Frank DiMaio [email protected]
Sebastien Fabbro [email protected]
Xingyue Li [email protected]
Charlie Briegel [email protected]
Mark Lucas [email protected]
Deb Kerstiens [email protected]
Johnny Tang [email protected]
Walt Akers [email protected]
J. Frederick Bartlett [email protected]
Valarie Bookwalter [email protected]
Thomas Blumer [email protected]
Anton Mezger [email protected]
Stephanie Allison [email protected]
Ric Claus [email protected]
Joe White [email protected]
Rozelle Wright [email protected]
John Winans [email protected]
Coles Sibley [email protected]
Matt Bickley [email protected]
Anna Estes [email protected]
Steve Syrett [email protected]
Ying Wu [email protected]
Tom Clifford [email protected]
Don Shea [email protected]
Dave Wetherholt [email protected]
Bruce Bowling [email protected]
Marty Knott [email protected]
Dave Gurd [email protected]
Mike Thuot [email protected]
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attendees:
Eric Bjorklund [email protected]
Marty Kraimer [email protected]
Bob Dalesio [email protected]
Toshi Mimashi [email protected]
Chip Watson [email protected]
Matthias Clausen [email protected]
Jeff Hill [email protected]
Steve Lewis [email protected]
Roland Mu"ller [email protected]
Richard Sachtschale [email protected]
Fred Carter [email protected]
Don Dohan [email protected]
Ed Desmond [email protected]
Bret Goodrich [email protected]
Andy Foster [email protected]
Bakul Banerjee [email protected]
Hamid Shoaee [email protected]
Jeff McDonald [email protected]
Terry Heuring [email protected]
David Myers [email protected]
Fabien Perriollat [email protected]
Tim Mooney [email protected]
Claude Saunders [email protected]
Janet Anderson [email protected]
Helfried Burckhart [email protected]
Kagarmanov Albert [email protected]
Graham Waters [email protected]
Rolf Keitel [email protected]
Frank DiMaio [email protected]
Sebastien Fabbro [email protected]
Xingyue Li [email protected]
Charlie Briegel [email protected]
Mark Lucas [email protected]
Deb Kerstiens [email protected]
Johnny Tang [email protected]
Walt Akers [email protected]
J. Frederick Bartlett [email protected]
Valarie Bookwalter [email protected]
Thomas Blumer [email protected]
Anton Mezger [email protected]
Stephanie Allison [email protected]
Ric Claus [email protected]
Joe White [email protected]
Rozelle Wright [email protected]
John Winans [email protected]
Coles Sibley [email protected]
Matt Bickley [email protected]
Anna Estes [email protected]
Steve Syrett [email protected]
Ying Wu [email protected]
Tom Clifford [email protected]
Don Shea [email protected]
Dave Wetherholt [email protected]
Bruce Bowling [email protected]
Marty Knott [email protected]
Dave Gurd [email protected]
Mike Thuot [email protected]
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