A Python Framework for Integration of Measurements into the EPICS Control System

Many measurements in accelerator physics require ded-
icated scans of parameters, such as the main frequency of
the RF system for chromaticity measurements or a variation
of quadrupole strength for beta function measurements, etc.
Such measurements cannot be performed by simply reading
an instrument, but require a certain measurement procedure.
These measurements are typically implemented as scripts,
as they are often written by staff or students whose task is
the measurement itself. For reusability and maintainability,
however, an integration into the EPICS control system is
favoured. This has multiple benefits such as the easy archiv-
ing of results in the central database or the integration of the
measurements into the standard operator panels. To allow
non expert staff and students to easily build measurements
exposed via the EPICS control system, we built a frame-
work in Python to implement such measurement routines
as EPICS input-output-controllers (IOC). This framework
allows the author of such measurements to focus on the mea-
surement itself and still benefit from an EPICS integration
without the need for extensive knowledge in EPICS IOC
... mehr
development.