LHC-GCS : a model-driven approach for automatic PLC and SCADA code generation

The LHC experiments’ Gas Control System (LHC GCS) project [1] aims to provide the four LHC experiments (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb) with control for their 23 gas systems. To ease the production and maintenance of 23 control systems, a model-driven approach has been adopted to generate automatically the code for the Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and for the Supervision Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. The first milestones of the project have been achieved. The LHC GCS framework [4] and the generation tools have been produced. A first control application has actually been generated and is in production, and a second is in preparation. This paper describes the principle and the architecture of the model-driven solution. It will in particular detail how the model-driven solution fits with the LHC GCS framework and with the UNICOS [5] data-driven tools.