RE: Wireless devices inside the accelerator tunnel

[<austen.rose@diamond.ac.uk>]

This is from one of our operations team at Diamond:

 

We [Ops] have been using 802.11 WiFi in the accelerator vaults since 2009.  We’ve been using the same “Netgear WG102 Access Points” right the way through without any issues.  These are fielded inboard of the storage ring and below beam height, so the X-ray dose they see is reduced.  These have been used as access points for the two Thermal imaging ‘robots’.

 

The first robot originally ran using a PC motherboard fitted with a PCI Wireless adapter card and I never saw any issues with radiation damage affecting anything (other than the visible light camera). This robot was also fielded inboard of the ring and the PC / PCI card are only ~6 inches above the floor level so experienced less dose than the Access Points.  

 

The second ‘robot’ uses a Raspberry PI2 and a simple USB WiFi dongle to communicate.  This robot is mounted on cables over the top of the Storage Ring (~1.5m above the beam pipe).  It has only been in use for a few months but so far there haven’t been any problems or noticeable radiation damage, and it has been sat over the injection straight for 2 weeks.   

 

We have also used cheap Arduino UNO and MEGA cards for thermocouples, but these have been connected via Ethernet not wireless.  However one of the Arduino UNO cards did die after about 6 months in the tunnel located next to a Dipole magnet, I suspect this was due to radiation.

 

We have also never seen any adverse effects to the Machine or beam from having wifi in the tunnel.

 

Hope this is of some vague use? 

 

 

Regards,

 

Austen Rose

(x8495)

 

From: tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov [mailto:tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Bob Gunion
Sent: 22 September 2015 21:53
To: tech-talk@aps.anl.gov
Subject: Wireless devices inside the accelerator tunnel

 

Hi all,

At the ALS we have a lack of adequate temperature monitoring on our magnet coils.  We would like to address this, but the cost of wiring to all the thermocouple modules, between power and serial or ethernet communications, is quite high, so we though we might try some wireless devices.  There are some on the market (see the links below) that can handle 4-16 thermocouples apiece and run on batteries, eliminating all wiring except to the thermocouples themselves.  A self-healing mesh network like Zigbee or Wireless-HART would be ideal, but we are also considering 802.11b/g-type wireless (which has the added benefit of providing laptop/tablet access inside the tunnel during shutdowns).

 

So, I'm soliciting advice and experience from the community: 

- Has anyone tried a solution like this in other accelerators?  

- Have any particular devices worked well, or not?  

- Have any radiation damage issues been addressed using shielding?

 

Here's some links to candidate devices:

 

http://www2.emersonprocess.com/en-us/brands/rosemount/temperature/high-density-measurement/848t-wireless/pages/index.aspx

http://www.industrialinterface.co.uk/z-head-4-tc-multi-input-thermocouple-input-wireless-transmitter

http://www.omega.com/pptst/OM-WLS-TEMP.html

http://www.omega.com/pptst/OM-WLS-TC.html

http://www.yokogawa.com/us/products/industrial-networking/wireless-field-networks/wireless-temperature-transmitters/multi-input-temperature-transmitter-ytmx580.htm

http://search.ni.com/nisearch/app/main/p/bot/no/ap/tech/lang/en/pg/1/sn/catnav:pm,n8:4/q/wls-9213/

 

Thanks,

Bob Gunion

 

 

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