An integrated control system for the LHCb experiment

The entire LHCb experiment is under the supervision of the experiment control system (ECS). The ECS deals with the configuration, operation and monitoring of all the run time related tasks (DAQ, DCS, trigger, timing, etc). The same framework toolkit is used throughout the ECS, turning it into a homogeneous control system. This framework (based on a commercial SCADA) is being developed for the four LHC experiments. The ECS is organized in a hierarchical, tree-like structure. Every online component in the experiment is integrated into a logical tree of nodes, which are modeled as finite state machines (FSM). The use of FSM allows the automation and sequencing of actions, as well as error recovery procedures. Due to the partitioning features, also provided by the FSM, the various sub-detectors can run in stand-alone using different instances of the ECS user interface. The aim of this paper is to present the architecture and the tools that allowed us to build a control system which fully integrates all parts of the experiment.