Upgrade of the Machine Interlock System for the ELBE Accelerator Facility

The ELBE facility with its 40 MeV C.W. LINAC has recently received an upgrade in terms of new secondary radiation sources and beam lines, while advancing the accelerator infrastructure towards 1.6 mA C.W. operation (1.0 mA before). Therefore, the machine interlock system (MIS) was in parts redesigned to meet the new timing requirements resulting from the increased overall beam power. It comprises fast beam loss detection and a PLC based equipment protection system (EPS), tripping the key components of the electron sources. The former tripping system using PLC interrupts was replaced by an in-house developed staggered CPLD based system with optical transmission and a PROFINET IO interface for control system integration. The EPS is distributed on several PLCs and has been improved in terms of M2M communication. Further, the vacuum inrush protection was completely renewed using brought-in equipment.
This contribution depicts the technical features and performance of the MIS subsystems, as well as the challenges posed by the project track of the ELBE upgrade during implementation.