CERN Accelerating science

The subject of this thesis was the development of a Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system in SIMATIC WinCC Open Architecture Version 3.19 (WinCC OA) for the operation of the laboratory station of The Fast Interaction Trigger (FIT) subdetectors in A Large Ion Collider Experiment. A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) is one of the major experiments conducted at the Large Hadron Collider within the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. Its primary objective is to investigate the properties of a state of matter known as quarkgluon plasma, which according to current scientific knowledge is believed to have existed fractions of a second after the Big Bang. The FIT subdetector system is a key component of the experiment comprising three detector systems FT0, FV0, and FDD grouped into five modules. These detectors provide information to less dynamic detectors in the experiment regarding the occurrence of collisions, determine the interaction plane, and assess collision centrality. The development work was carried out at CERN in collaboration with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Faculty of Physics of the Warsaw University of Technology during July and August 2024. The author of this thesis contributed to the development of a new control structure for the FIT subdetector system and served as an oncall expert. The scope of tasks included modernizing the original software controlling the subdetector system which did not meet the standards required for the experiment. As a result a compliant structure was developed including the SCADA application created by the author and described in this thesis enabling complete control over the new system. During the system’s development the CERN Joint Controls Project Framework (JCOP) was implemented into the WinCC OA application allowing communication with lower system layers via the Distributed Information Management (DIM) protocol. The structure of transmitted data frames was defined and a script was prepared for their import into WinCC enabling integration with the internal database. The final stage involved designing and programming a user interface for managing the Front-end Electronics (FEE) modules the Processing Module (PM) and the Trigger and Clock Module (TCM). The first implementation of the developed system was at the detector simulation station in the FIT laboratory which allows for training on-call experts. Each detector in the experiment has an on-call expert assigned around the clock who resolves issues by connecting to the control system in case of a malfunction. The previous software structure did not allow for error generation under simulated conditions which prevented practical training for future experts in troubleshooting. The developed system is ultimately intended for implementation in the control of the FIT in the real ALICE experiment.