Machine Protection and Autonomous Predictive Interlock System
At a glance
- Project leader : Martin Rejzek, Christoph Senn
- Deputy of project leader : Dr. Christian Hilbes, Dr. Joanna Weng
- Project team : Stefan Brunner, Silvan Fluri, Carmen Frischknecht-Gruber, Benjamin Heuberger, Patrick Probst, Christian Sommer, David Tobias Stocker
- Project status : ongoing
- Funding partner : EU and other international programmes
- Project partner : European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) / European Spallation Source (ESS)
- Contact person : Christian Hilbes
Description
The European Spallation Source ESS is a large-scale research facility under construction in Lund, Sweden, which will provide high-intensity neutron beams for scientific research from 2025. To generate the neutrons, protons are accelerated to 95% the speed of light in a 600-m linear accelerator and collide with a rotating target made of 3 tons of tungsten. During operation, it must be ensured that the facility is not activated or damaged by errant protons, which is realized by the Machine Protection System (MPS).
In a research collaboration, we have supported ESS in the design of the MPS, developed the Fast Beam Interlock System (FBIS) and are extending it with self-learning, distributed AI-based functions to predict potentially critical events (Predicitve Interlock).