An automated vacuum system

Software tools available with the Ground Test Accelerator (GTA) control system provide the capability to express a control problem as a finite-state machine. System states and transitions are expressed in terms of accelerator parameters, and actions are taken based on state transitions. This is particularly useful for sequencing operations which are modal in nature or unwieldy when implemented with conventional programming. State diagrams are automatically translated into code which is executed by the control system. These tools have been applied to the vacuum system for the GTA to implement automatic sequencing of operations.<>