LHC-GCS: a framework for the production of 23 homogeneous control systems

The LHC experiments’ Gas Control System (LHC GCS) aims to provide the LHC experiments with homogeneous control systems (supervision and process control layers) for their 23 gas systems. To ease the production of these control systems, it has been decided to develop a library of components, the LHC GCS framework, and to adopt a model-driven automatic code generation approach. The first milestones of the project have been achieved. The components of the LHC GCS framework have been developed as well as the code generation tools. A first control application has been built and put into production, a second is in preparation. This paper describes the components which have been developed to ease the production of the supervision and process control layers of the control applications. It identifies in particular the additions and extensions to the UNICOS libraries and how the framework could be re-used for other applications. The paper also explains how the LHC GCS framework is associated with the LHC GCS automatic code production.