Orateur
Description
At CEA/IRFU, we design and provide particle accelerators along with their control systems. A key part of these systems is the Machine Protection System (MPS). Specifically, the SBCT (system for beam current transmission monitoring) monitors the beam using ACCT sensors. To ensure machine protection, this system must be able to stop the beam in only a few µsec if an anomaly is detected.
The SBCT has already been deployed and will be deployed on several different accelerators. The hardware is based on the MTCA.4 standard, using FPGA/CPU IFC1410 boards from the IOxOS company. While the hardware and the core firmware remain the same across different projects, many other things differ:
- the system part: how the board boots, how the rootfs is loaded, and the Linux distribution version,
- the EPICS environment,
- firmware options: some specific features are enabled or disabled depending on the accelerator.
Because the SBCT is a critical part of the MPS, we must ensure it is 100% reliable. It is essential to automatically test and validate every new version of the firmware and software in every production configuration.
To solve this, we implemented Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing. Our solution uses Labgrid and a customized Python framework. This setup allows us to automatically control the hardware, boot the system and perform tests at the EPICS level with WeTest before deployment. This presentation will show how we built this platform and how it helps us secure our critical systems.