Accelerator-control-system interface for intelligent power supplies

A number of high-current high-precision magnet power supplies have been installed at the proton storage ring at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Accelerator Complex. The units power large dipole magnets in the ring. These bending magnets require a high-current supply that is precise and stable. The control and interface design for these power supplies represents a departure from all others on-site. The supplies have sophisticated microprocessor control on-board and communicate with the accelerator control system via RS-422 (serial communications). The units, built by Alpha Scientific Electronics, Hayward, CA use a high-level ASCII control protocol. The low-level front-end software used by the accelerator control system has been written to accommodate these new devices. They communicate with the control system through a terminal server port connected to the site-wide ethernet backbone. Details of the software implementation for the analog and digital control of the supplies through the accelerator control system are presented.