Development of a software package for controlling Precision Proton Spectrometer (CMS-PPS/CERN)

The Precision Proton Spectrometer (PPS) is a sub-detector of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), made of a set of near-beam movable detectors, housed in Roman Pot (RP) units, symmetrically installed along the LHC beam pipe about 200m from the CMS Interaction Point (IP5). PPS is designed for precise measurements of the position, translated in momentum loss, and the time of flight of protons scattered in a very forward region. In light of that, the combination of the forward detector acceptances and precise time measurements O(-12)s are very powerful for gamma-gamma high masses processes searches. The goal of this summer student project was to develop a software package for controlling the frontend electronics of the micro Silicon-Strips detectors, used for PPS in special LHC fills for Roman Pots alignment. The software is written in two layers, one for hardware access and another as a top layer user interface. Through a web application users should be capable of accessing specific frontend boards by a slow-control token bit protocol communication, managed by the CERN-made CCU25 ASIC. Therefore, during the stay in the project, the software package was successfully developed meeting the initial requirements and tests proved the package to be working as expected.