Complex Event Processing approach to automated monitoring of a particle accelerator and its control system

This article presents the design and implementation of a software component for automated monitoring and diagnostic information analysis of a particle accelerator and its control system. The information that is analyzed can be seen as streams of events. A Complex Event Processing (CEP) approach to event processing was selected. The main advantage of this approach is the ability to continuously query data coming from several streams. The presented software component is based on Esper, the most popular open-source implementation of CEP. As a test bed, the control system of the accelerator complex located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, was chosen. The complex includes the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful accelerator. The main contribution to knowledge is by showing that the CEP approach can successfully address many of the challenges associated with automated monitoring of the accelerator and its control system that were previously unsolved. Test results, performance analysis, and a proposal for further works are also presented.