Recent progress and future plan of general control system of Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility at J-PARC

Sakai, Kenji ; Oi, Motoki ; Haga, Katsuhiro  ; Takada, Hiroshi   ; Kai, Tetsuya   ; Nakatani, Takeshi ; Kobayashi, Yasuo*; Watanabe, Akihiko*

For safely and efficiently operating a spallation neutron source and a muon target, a general control system (GCS) operates within Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF). GCS consists of several subsystems such as an integral control system (ICS), interlock systems (ILS), shared servers, network system, and timing distribution system (TDS). Although GCS is an independent system that controls the target stations, it works closely with the control systems of the accelerators and other facilities in J-PARC. Since the first beam injection in 2008, GCS has operated stably without any serious troubles after modification based on commissioning for operation and control of MLF. Then, significant improvements in GCS were proceeded until 2015 in considering sustainable long-term operation and maintenance. In recent years, many instruments in GCS have replaced to next generation models due to end of production and support of them. This report summarizes upgrade history of GCS during a period of approximately ten years after start of beam operation, and its present status. As future plan, it will also discuss development of an abnormality sign determination system that can detects potential abnormality from slight state transitions of target stations by analyzing operation data over the entire MLF.