Dripline: A Distributed Experiment Control System
E Fabre González, Ben LaRoque, Noah Oblath · DigitalCommons - CalPoly (California State Polytechnic University) · 2019
Project 8 is a nuclear physics experiment which seeks to measure the mass of neutrinos. The experiment requires the use of various pieces of hardware which need to be controlled, and from this need, a software system named Dripline is being developed. Because most researchers have some knowledge in Python and it is easier to understand the syntax of Python as opposed to C++, a Python application programming interface (API) is being created to allow any researcher working with Dripline ease of use. As development progresses, features may be added or removed as needed which requires constant testing, debugging, and validation to ensure all systems are working as intended. Individual portions of the code go through unit testing to make sure all parts work individually. After unit testing is completed, integration testing is then done to make sure the parts operate together as expected. The final result of this research is a portion of the system which automatically generates objects in Python that simulate the hardware being used with the researcher being able to interact with the objects via the Python API.