jacow how low cost devices can help on the way to alice upgrade

• DOI: 10.18429/jacow-icalepcs2017-modpl07
• Publication Date: 2018-01-01
• Authors: Andre Augustinus; M. Lechman; John Lång; Alexander Kurepin; Peter Chochula; Ombretta Pinazza; Peter Matthew Bond
• Keywords: Control Systems Upgrades; 7. Clean energy; Accelerator Physics

The ambitious upgrade plan of the ALICE experiment expects a complete redesign of its data flow after the LHC shutdown scheduled for 2019, for which new electronics modules are being developed in the collaborating institutes. Access to prototypes is at present very limited and full scale prototypes are expected only close to the installation date. To overcome the lack of realistic HW, the ALICE DCS team built small-scale prototypes based on low-cost commercial components (Arduino, Raspberry PI), equipped with environmental sensors, and installed in the experiment areas around and inside the ALICE detector. Communication and control software was developed, based on the architecture proposed for the future detectors, including CERN JCOP FW and ETM WINCC OA. Data provided by the prototypes has been recorded for several months, in presence of beam and magnetic field. The challenge of the harsh environment revealed some insurmountable weaknesses, thus excluding this class of devices from usage in a production setup. They did prove, however, to be robust enough for test purposes, and are still a realistic test-bed for developers while the production of final electronics is continuing.<br/>Proceedings of the 16th Int. Conf. on Accelerator and Large Experimental Control Systems, ICALEPCS2017, Barcelona, Spain<br/>