The Control System for the Linear Accelerator at the European XFEL: Status and First Experiences

The European XFEL is a 3.4 km long X-ray FreeElectron Laser facility with a superconducting, linear accelerator and initially three undulator beam lines. First user run with two experiments has started in September this year at the first photon beamline while the final installation and commissioning of the other, two photon beam lines is well underway. This paper will focus on control system parts of the linear accelerator and highlight briefly its design and implementation. Namely the hardware framework based on the MTCA.4 standard, testing software concepts and components at real and virtual accelerator facilities. A well-established method for integrating high-level controls into the middle layer by means of a shot-synchronized data acquisition allows for rapid deployment and commissioning of the accelerator controls. Status of the final installations, of the commissioning phase and some first experiences from a technical and an operational point-of-view will be presented.