Controls Software Group

Group Organization
The Controls Software Group is comprised of two teams. The Low Level Applications Team works primarily on front-end controls, or software that runs on the EPICS I/O Controller (IOC) computer. The System Team works on back-end applications, or software that runs on the EPICS console computer.

Contact Us
For operational Control System Software problems, please contact Software On-Call by pager:

Mission

The mission of the Controls Software Group is to develop and maintain high quality control system software for operation of Jefferson Lab’s accelerator and experimental facilities.

  • Day On-Call:     8am – 8pm:    876-1754
  • Night On-Call:   8pm – 8am:    876-1755
  • Jefferson Lab Control System
    The Control Systems at Jefferson Lab are based on the Experimental and Industrial Control System known as EPICS. The EPICS toolkit is a set of software tools and applications that provide a software infrastructure for the development of distributed control systems. This software, initially developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, is now the basis for an international collaboration with over 90 sites. EPICS uses a client/server model and provides communication between computers distributed around the Jefferson Lab site. The servers, or Input/Output Controllers (IOCs) perform I/O and device control. The information on the IOCs is accessible to clients via the Channel Access (CA) network protocol.

    At Jefferson Lab, EPICS is used for control and monitoring of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator (CEBA), the Experimental Halls, and the Free Electron Laser (FEL). These EPICS configuration for the Accelerator utilizes 80 Motorola VME boards as IOCs and 20 HP-UX Workstations for high level control, data archiving, retrieval and visualization and operator interfaces in the control room. People who are not accelerator operators can view control system information elsewhere on-site, but not manipulate the process variables.

    The U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF/JLAB) with its projects Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator (CEBA) and Free Electron Laser (FEL) is now operational, with physics experiments continuing. This page gives links to information about the system used to monitor and control the CEBA accelerator.

    Accelerator controls

    • EPICS The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System
    • cdev The Common DEVice class library & framework

    The CEBAF Accelerator

    • System description: Software and hardware configuration 
    • Procedures: Descriptions of some operational tasks and procedures 
    • Accelerator Operations: Schedule, procedures and achievements 
    • Accelerator Science: Accelerator design, developments at CEBAF
    • Free Electron Laser: Research, development and technology transfer