nAos new Analog observation system Stephane Deghaye AB/CO/FC section meeting 22 January 2003

Overview The nAos system The vscope application The nAos front-ends Telecom Future

The nAos system LAN Oracle database Virtual oscilloscopes Analog inputs VXI crates Triggers

The vscope application C / SQL / MOTIF; 3 rd generation of frame; LOC: 40k; Maintenance cost: ++ Feasible in Java ? (performance) 

The database 38 tables – 12 commons, 13 CPS & 13 SPS. True relational design with PK, FK and constraints Store information on: –Signal location –Menu hierarchy –Signal setting and global setting –Hardware installed –Events and statistics.

The front-ends Back-plane bus standards; Operating system and system facilities; Application.

VXI Definition of the two outer columns of the P2 to include: –A very stable 10 MHz ECL clock –ECL and analog supply voltages –ECL & TTL trigger lines –An analog summing bus –The module identification bus –The local bus (daisy chain structure) Deeper than the VME standard (x2).

CompactPCI Synchronous bus 33MHz; Wider bandwidth than in the VME (! 64x, …); Shorter back-plane available due to reflection  Bridge in the back-plane; Today, fast scopes are only in CPCI.

Operating systems VxWorks on VXI with NI CPU 030; LynxOS on VXI with VME CPU CES; Linux on CPCI with CPCI CPU (x86 based).

VxWorks on VXI RTOS; Mono-user; Everything is bound dynamically to the kernel; Use of the NI resource manager (PnP); License problem.

LynxOS on VXI LynxOS specialists at CERN; Better integration of the nAos crates; Need to write our own RESMAN (A. Gagnaire); Need to use an VME/VXI adapter. RIO 8062 PowerPC VME Controller VME Connectors Glue logic VXI Connectors

nAos FE applic. (VxWorks) Multi-threads (VxWorks)  all data shared; Written in C; One big file with everything + pseudo device driver for each HW module; Use of message queues for inter threads communication; Some nice remote diagnostic features.

nAos FE applic. (LynxOS) Multi tasks + threads for simple tasks (e.g. waiting on a handle); Use POSIX shared memory segment; Modularization of the applic (one file per process, library for HW access and for common functions); Add auto recovery & debugging features.

Process View NNN L NL L VL H VH

The nAos Protocol Messages structure GroupKeyScopeLAChannnelNoParameters Group: 1 byte, message identifier, response => MSB = 1; Key: 1 byte, comb. of the virtual scope no and the channel no; ScopeLA: 1 byte, logical address of the scope used; ChannelNo: 1 byte, channel no in the scope of LA ‘ScopeLA’ Parameters: ASCII chars depending of the group, from 0 to … NB: Several messages can be send at the same time by separating them with a ‘;’

The nAos Protocol Parameters structure No parameter. E.g SCOPE_TYPE, WS_COUNTV_UNLOCK; Fixed in number and position. E.g. ADD_SIGNAL (signalID, prio, triggerCrate, triggerId, triggerCode); Variable in number and position => tag or tag-value pair. E.g. SCOPE_ACTION(PROP_TIME, #PROP_TIME, …). UDP/IP Connectionless Unreliable

Where we want to go… The nAos needs to be re-written using standard components; The vscope application is now unmaintainable; We can share hardware and software with other groups (SiWG); nAos can be more than just curve visualisation (Contract ?) We need another way to trigger the scopes;

Trigger… True pulse (not a trigger) Tagging module Pretrigger (computed)

The END ! Thank you !

Vscope zoom