LIGO Document T1700433-v1

Modernizing the EtherCAT Slow Controls System

Document #:
LIGO-T1700433-v1
Document type:
T - Technical notes
Other Versions:
LIGO-T1700433-v2
22 Sep 2020, 19:16
Abstract:
We propose to upgrade our EtherCAT slow controls system to TwinCAT 3.1. TwinCAT 3.1 allows us to take full advantage of modern computer hardware and software: It supports multi-core processors and 64-bit operating systems. With the vacuum system already on TwinCAT 3.1, this should simplify long-term maintenance, and easily accommodate future upgrade needs.

At the same time, we propose to reduce the number of the slow controls computers for the main interferometer controls from three to one. This will keep the costs down and reduce the communication dependencies between different EtherCAT computer systems. We would like to move from one large network ring topology to multiple smaller EtherCAT network interfaces that are working independently.

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