The detector safety system for LHC experiments

The Detector Safety System (DSS), currently being developed at CERN under the auspices of the Joint Controls Project (JCOP), will be responsible for assuring the protection of equipment for the four Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments. Thus, the DSS will require a high degree of both availability and reliability. After evaluation of various possible solutions, a prototype is being built based on a redundant Siemens PLC front-end, to which the safety-critical part of the DSS task is delegated. This is then supervised by a PVSS SCADA system via an OPC server. The PLC front-end is capable of running autonomously and of automatically taking predefined protective actions whenever required. The supervisory layer provides the operator with a status display and with limited online reconfiguration capabilities. Configuration of the code running in the PLCs will be completely data driven via the contents of a "configuration database." Thus, the DSS can easily adapt to the different and constantly evolving requirements of the LHC experiments during their construction, commissioning, and exploitation phases.