Use of Industrial Components in SL/BT Equipment Controls

The control system of all SPS target stations, beam absorbers and other aperture limiting devices is presently being refurbished, using solely standard industrial hardware and software components. SIEMENS Simatic S7-300 programmable logic controllers serve as equipment controllers. They are connected through Profibus to a WinNT front-end running the SIEMENS WinCC SCADA package which acts as local controller and gateway for remote access. A variant configuration, where the PLCs are directly linked to Ethernet, has been used for controlling the SPS Q measurement kickers. These and some other SL/BT projects will be reviewed where fully off-the-shelf components have been successfully integrated into the SL accelerator controls infrastructure. The arguments leading to the various technical choices will be laid down including a report of the experience gained. Finally, the presentation will address the perspective and current ideas for using industrial components in controlling SL/BT equipment during the LHC era.