Python Toolkit for Accelerator Controls¶
Python Toolkit for Accelerator Controls (Pytac) is a Python library for working with elements of particle accelerators.
It is hosted on Github at https://github.com/willrogers/pytac.
Two pieces of software influenced its design:
- Matlab Middlelayer, used widely by accelerator physicists
- APHLA, high-level applications written in Python by the NSLS-II accelerator physics group
Overview¶
Pytac provides a Python library pytac that makes it easier to communicate with machine hardware for online applications. Although it currently works with EPICS, it should be possible to adapt to support other control systems.
The design is based around a Lattice object that contains a sequence of Element s. Each element represents a physical component in accelerator, such as an electromagnet, drift or BPM. For control purposes, each element may have zero or more ‘fields’ that represent parameters that may change: a BPM element has fields ‘x’ and ‘y’ that represent beam position, and a quadrupole magnet has ‘b1’ that represents the quadrupolar magnetic field. For monitoring and controlling these fields, elements have one Device object per field. These devices contain the necessary information to get and set live data using the control system.
Data may be requested in ENG or PHYS units and will be converted as appropriate. Two types of unit conversion are available: Polynomial (often used for linear conversion) and Piecewise Cubic Hermite Interpolating Polynomial (Pchip; often used for magnet data where field may not be linear with current). In the case that measurement data (used to set up the conversion objects) is not in the same units as the physical models, further functions may be given to these objects to complete the conversion correctly.
Elements may be grouped into families (an element may be in more than one family) and requested from the lattice object in those families.
Machines are defined using a set of .csv files, located by default in the pytac/data directory.