DCS & Communication Software for the TPC Front-end Electronics

Matthias Richter, Sebastian Bablok, Benjamin Schockert

ALICE TPC FEE meeting, CERN, Nov 05 1

DCS & Communication Softwarefor the TPC Front-end Electronics

Matthias RichterSebastian Bablok

Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, Norway

Benjamin SchockertCenter for Technology Transfer and Telecommunications,

University of Applied Sciences Worms, Germany

TPC Front-end-electronics meeting, Cern, Nov 22,2005



Software architecture

Cmd / ACKChannel

ServiceChannel

MessageChannel

FED Server

FEE Client

InterComLayer

FeeServer

PVSS II(FED - Client)

FeeServerFeeServer

Supervisory Layer

Control Layer

Field Layer

Front-End Device Interface (FED)

Front-End Electronics Interface (FEE)

HardwareDevice

HardwareDevice

HardwareDevice

Internal BusSystems

Load configuration data from file OR database

Config.DB

Config.File



Status of the components

Component Status Comments

FED API defined - prototyped final specifications of the FED API have been defined in Oct 05 - will be published soon; implementation in FedServer module of InterComLayer in progress

InterComLayer mostly functional communication with FeeServer fully implemented, Data base access module and FedServer module prototyped

Data base API prototype discussion about database- and content structure ongoing

FEE API fully functional implemented in FeeServer core and FeeClient module of InterComLayer

FeeServer core fully functional version 0.7.3 stable running

FeeServer-ControlEngine fully functional exports services for Temp, Voltages, and currents for each FEC; commands defined and implemented



Configuration Data Encoding

CE provides 2 alternative formats of Configuration Data:

1. Usage of CE Command Set to write to RCU memory

Each single operation corresponds to one DIM command

Low performance, but flexibility for development

But: multiple operations can also be stacked into one DIM transaction if desired

2. Message Buffer Format (data exchange interface between DCS board and RCU – previously presented, see talk TPC FEE meeting Jan 05)

allows to encode multiple operations into one command block even on the level of data exchange between DCS board and RCU

2 alternative ways of data archiving:

1. As BLOBs

2. Archiving of individual parameters and data preparation on-the-fly



Next steps

I. Data base interface: Specifications discussed with the DCS group; implementation ongoing

File access as fall back solution availableII. performance tests of data base access

III. FedAPI implementation in progress

IV. PVSS – InterComLayer communication using the FedAPI

V. Handling of States for RCU and FECs in the FeeServer ControlEngine

VI. Optimization

2005 2006 2007 I. II. III. V. IV. VI.



Open issues

? Data base structure and structure of config data has to be defined

? Creation, Handling, Archiving

? communication: ControlEngine – Monitoring and Safety Module (MSM): data publishing fully functional but sophisticated error handling/notification scheme necessary

? mass tests and scaling of behaviour with 216 DCS board nodes connect to the InterComLayer



Documentation and Downloadhttp://www.ift.uib.no/~kjeks/wiki

General Overview

Download (Source code packages, programs for the DCS board)

CE command specification

CE service specification

Setup recipe

FAQ

Source code and documentation of FeeServer core and InterComLayer: https://www.ztt.fh-worms.de/download/alice

anyway: drop an email to us if there is something mysterious with the software or you couldn't find what you want:

[email protected], [email protected],[email protected]



Components and APIs

FEE ROOT Debug GUI (ROOT framework)

FED Server

FEE Client

InterCom Layer

DCS board

FeeServer

CE

RCU(Motherboard)

FEE ROOT ClientUSB

connector FEE Client FED Client

U2F API

FED API(DIM)

FEE API(DIM)

FEE-CE API

CE

-RC

U A

PI

FEE API(DIM)

PVSS FED Client

FED API(DIM)

ConfigurationDatabase

DB

AP

I

Documents

DCS & Communication Software for the TPC Front-end Electronics