Designing a Magnetic Measurement Data Acquisition and Control System with Reuse in Mind: A Rotating Coil System Example

TL;DR

This paper presents a modular, reusable design methodology for magnetic measurement data acquisition systems, demonstrated through two distinct rotating coil measurement systems for accelerator magnets.

Contribution

It introduces an architectural approach that maximizes software reuse and flexibility, applicable to different magnetic measurement systems with shared core hardware and software components.

Findings

Successfully implemented two dissimilar measurement systems using the same architecture.

Enhanced reusability and flexibility in system design.

Applicable to various magnet testing scenarios in accelerators.

Abstract

Accelerator magnet test facilities frequently need to measure different magnets on differently equipped test stands and with different instrumentation. Designing a modular and highly reusable system that combines flexibility built-in at the architectural level as well as on the component level addresses this need. Specification of the backbone of the system, with the interfaces and dataflow for software components and core hardware modules, serves as a basis for building such a system. The design process and implementation of an extensible magnetic measurement data acquisition and control system are described, including techniques for maximizing the reuse of software. The discussion is supported by showing the application of this methodology to constructing two dissimilar systems for rotating coil measurements, both based on the same architecture and sharing core hardware modules and many software components. The first system is for production testing 10 m long cryo-assemblies containing two MQXFA quadrupole magnets for the high-luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider and the second for testing IQC conventional quadrupole magnets in support of the accelerator system at Fermilab.