Improving operational reliability of Indus accelerators by implementation of EPICS based Control System for Microtron injector

The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) is a comprehensive set of software tools for creating control applications. The home-grown VME infrastructure at RRCAT, along with LabVIEW was used for the control of common injector of Indus rings i.e. Microtron. Increasing demands and continuous evolution of the system entailed upgrade of the control system. An EPICS based control system is recently commissioned and deployed for Microtron that renders enhanced SCADA functionalities. The SoftIOC running on Linux, talks to a VME station, an oscilloscope, a digital teslameter, a temperature scanner and an RF synthesizer on RS232 and TCP/IP. The OPI runs EDM on Linux. This paper discusses the operational improvements achieved in the control system by upgrading to EPICS. The reliability of the system is further enhanced by modules like Fault Diagnostics and Cathode Emission Auto-correction. The fault diagnostics module predicts anomalies in the system behavior and eases fault troubleshooting. The cathode emission auto-correction is a closed loop control for electron emission from the cathode. This paper also presents a system optimization perspective on hardware and software aspects chosen for the new system, and the design & implementation constraints on Windows and Linux.