VvxWorks in Physics Research
J.F. Gournay
DAPNIA/SIS
CEA Saclay
France
Our laboratory is involved in international physics research projects. For this purpose, distributed control, acquisition systems, stand-alone test bench systems and embedded systems are developed and are delivered to the physicists as turn-key systems. Among them, the following projects were based on a vxWorks solution:
- Control systems for particle accelerators (MACSE and IPHI at Saclay, France, TTF at DESY, Germany, CEBAF at TJNAF, USA)
- Slow control systems for nuclear physics experiments (SMC and COMPASS at CERN, Switzerland, Compton at TJNAF, USA)
- Test bench for superconducting magnets (W7X at Saclay, France)
- Control system for astronomy (VISIR at VLT, Chile)
- Embedded systems for deep-sea applications in high energy physics (ANTARES in Mediterranean Sea)
Except for embedded systems, the control/acquisition architecture is based on VME front-ends supervised by Solaris or Linux workstations. EPICS is used as the vxWorks-based framework for most of these projects. The EPICS framework is adopted world-wide in the experimental physics world for these kinds of applications.
The most significant of these projects will be described and all the benefits to use vxWorks for them will be highlighted.
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