Domain Specific Language for Magnetic Measurements at CERN

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco–Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 20 Member States. Its main purpose is fundamental research in partcle physics, namely investigating what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the design and realization of the new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has required a remarkable technological effort in many areas of engineering. In particular, the tests of LHC superconducting magnets disclosed new horizons to magnetic measurements. At CERN, the objectively large R&D effort of the Technolgy Department/Magnets, Superconductors and Cryostats (TE/MSC) group identified areas where further work is required in order to assist the LHC commissioning and start-up, to provide continuity in the instrumentation for the LHC magnets maintenance, and to achieve more accurate magnet models for the LHC exploitation. In view of future projects, a wide range of software requirements has been recently satisfied by the Flexible Framework for Magnetic Measurements (FFMM), designed also for integrating more performing flexible hardware. FFMM software applications control several devices, such as encoder boards, digital integrators, motor controllers, transducers. In addition, they synchronize and coordinate different measurement tasks and actions.