[etherlab-users] Piping EtherLab process data to/from EPICS

[Sean Leavey]

Hi all,

I'd like to be able to create control loops in EtherLab, to run in real
time, but have the process data they monitor/create piped asynchronously
to an EPICS server. I'd also like, if possible, to set flags with EPICS
to start/stop control loops in EtherLab.

I've seen the Diamond Light Source work on getting EPICS to talk to
EtherCAT hardware using EtherCAT Master (e.g.
http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/accelconf/icalepcs2011/papers/wemau004.pdf).
While this is nice, it seems to take control of the interface to the
EtherCAT hardware away from EtherLab real time applications. With the
Diamond interface it seems like you can't run EtherLab models alongside
their scanner.

It seems like there aren't any other pre-existing solutions to this, so
I'm looking in to how this can be done with my own code. I'm not sure
where to begin looking, but pdserv looks promising. Before I begin, can
anyone think of a reason why this might *not* be possible, and if it
would be possible, does anyone have advice for where to start looking?

Many thanks,


Sean Leavey