FEATURE MANUFACTURING SOFTWARE
MEASUREMENT AND CONTROL for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
Software from National Instruments has assisted the measuring and controlling, in real time, of the position of bulk components to absorb energetic particles out of the nominal beam core at the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
T
he European Organization for Nuclear Research, more commonly
known as CERN, is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. Located on the border between France and Switzerland, CERN was founded in 1954 and serves as a research organisation where scientists gather to study the building blocks of matter and the forces that hold them together. CERN relies on machines called particle accelerators to crash beams of ions or protons either together or into other targets. These collisions release enormous amounts of energy - enough to recreate the high energy conditions that existed during the formation of the universe. The data collected from the particle collisions in the LHC will likely provide unprecedented information about how our universe came to be and help answer such questions as why particles have mass and what is the origin of dark matter. The LHC, which is 27km in
circumference and is buried up to 150m underground, is capable of producing head-on collisions between particle
plan is to add around 60 more collimators and approximately 60 PXI systems for a total of about 200 PXI systems. In a given collimator, both PXI chassis
Above and below: the LHC is 27km in circumference and is buried up to 150m underground, is capable of producing head-on collisions between particle beams travelling at close to the speed of light
beam at full power is 350MJ, approximately the energy in a 400 tonne train travelling at 150kmh and enough energy to melt 500kg of copper.
beams travelling at close to the speed of light. To produce these collisions, the LHC sends two beams of protons or other positively charged heavy ions around the circular tunnel in opposite directions. Superconducting magnets that operate in a superfluid helium bath at just 1.9K (271ºC or -456ºF) control the trajectory of LHC beams. The total energy in each
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CRITICAL CONTROL Because of the extremely high energy levels in the beams, reliability is critical. A beam that travels off course can cause catastrophic damage to the collider. To prevent particles from straying from their intended paths, more than 100 devices called collimators are being installed. A collimator uses blocks of graphite or other heavy materials to absorb energetic particles out of the nominal beam core. Each collimator is controlled with reconfigurable I/O modules from National Instruments mounted in separate NI PXI chassis for redundancy for a total of 120 PXI systems. In the standard configuration, one chassis controls up to 15 stepper motors mounted on three different collimators through a 20 minute motion profile to accurately and synchronously align the graphite blocks, and a second chassis checks the real time positioning of the same collimators. In phase II of the project, the
run LabVIEW Real-Time on the controller for reliability and LabVIEW FPGA on the reconfigurable I/O devices in the peripheral slots to perform the collimator control. The NI SoftMotion Development Module and NI reconfigurable modules are used to quickly create a custom motion controller for approximately 600 stepper motors with millisecond synchronisation over the 27km of the LHC. The field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) on these devices provide the level of control that is needed. The LabVIEW and PXI solution was selected for the deployment platform due to the small size, ruggedness, and cost savings over the traditional VME and programmable logic controller-based model.
“We selected the
LabVIEW and PXI solution for the deployment platform due to the small size, ruggedness, and cost
savings over the traditional VME and programmable logic
controller-based model.” Roberto Losito, CERN
TIMING, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY To meet strict timing, accuracy, and reliability requirements, a motion control and feedback system was chosen based on reconfigurable I/O and LabVIEW FPGA. A design platform was selected that incorporated only the features that were needed without adding unnecessary cost. The LHC began
operation on 10th
September 2008, whereupon a beam of
accelerated protons entered the LHC’s 17 mile
underground tunnel and successfully completed a full lap less than an hour later, passing through each of the particle detectors spaced along the tunnel.
National Instruments
uk.ni.com T: 01635 523 545
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