​“It’s a lot of work to control a beamline, and more to control any beamline with the same software,” says project manager Kathryn Baker.  “The IBEX software works for 35 instruments and every type of experiment and technique scientists could run on those instruments,” she adds. 

IBEX is designed to allow instrument scientists and users to remotely control all of the devices on their beamline from the control cabin, without constantly needing to go in and out of blockhouses to make adjustments to their experiments. This might include adjusting sample environment temperature or pressure, or moving samples around. IBEX can also automate some functions, sparing researches some of the long, sleepless nights commonly associated with beamtime. 

The software is based on open-source software called EPICS – Experimental physics and industrial control systems – which is used by other large facilities such as the Diamond Light Source, ESS, and ITER. 

At ISIS, IBEX was first used on the IMAT and Larmor instruments when they came online. That iteration of IBEX was fairly basic, and it has been expanded and upgraded as it has been rolled out to the other ISIS beamlines.  

“We can only make changes when the beam is off” explains Kathryn. “We pick a shutdown and update a few at a time.” 

“There’s very little we do that is instrument-specific that isn’t configuration. It’s the same software but set up specifically for each.” 

The Experiment Controls Group 

​IBEX was installed and is managed by the ISIS Experiment Controls Group; a team of 13 software engineers that provide support for the ISIS instruments and the scientists that operate them. “We’ll connect a device or find out why a device isn’t talking to the software any more. We also do fault-finding alongside the electrical team,” says Kathryn. 

The group are also involved with instrument design and with developing new sample environments, which need to integrate with the IBEX software.