Automated Voltage Control in LHCb

LHCb is one of the 4 LHC experiments. In order to ensure the safety of the detector and to maximize efficiency, LHCb needs to coordinate its own operations, in particular the voltage configuration of the different subdetectors, according to the accelerator status. A control software has been developed for this purpose, based on the Finite State Machine toolkit and the SCADA system used for control throughout LHCb (and the other LHC experiments). This software permits to efficiently drive both the Low Voltage (LV) and High Voltage (HV) systems of the 10 different sub-detectors that constitute LHCb, setting each sub-system to the required voltage (easily configurable at run-time) based on the accelerator state. The control software is also responsible for monitoring the state of the Sub-detector voltages and adding it to the event data in the form of status-bits. Safe and yet flexible operation of the LHCb detector has been obtained and automatic actions, triggered by the state changes of the accelerator, have been implemented. This paper will detail the implementation of the voltage control software, its flexible run-time configuration and its usage in the LHCb experiment.