ROMULUSLib: An Autonomous, TCP/IP-Based, Multi-Architecture C Networking Library for DAQ and Control Applications

The new generation of Radiation Monitoring electronics developed at CERN, called the CERN RadiatiOn Monitoring Electronics (CROME), is a Zynq-7000 SoC-based Data Acquisition and Control system that replaces the previous generation to offer a higher safety standard, flexible integration and parallel communication with devices installed throughout the CERN complex. A TCP/IP protocol based C networking library, ROMULUSlib, was developed that forms the interface between CROME and the SCADA supervision software through the ROMULUS protocol. ROMULUSlib encapsulates Real-Time and Historical data, parameters and acknowledgement data in TCP/IP frames that offers high reliability and flexibility, full-duplex communication with the CROME devices and supports multi-architecture development by utilization of the POSIX standard. ROMULUSlib is autonomous as it works as a standalone library that can support integration with supervision applications by addition or modification of parameters of the data frame. This paper discusses the ROMULUS protocol, the ROMULUS Data frame and the complete set of commands and parameters implemented in the ROMULUSlib for CROME supervision.