Over the next few days, I will be working on upgrading the aLIGO Conlog install to include new bugfixes distributed by Patrick T.  The currently running conlog *should* not be affected, but please let me know if it is (ryan.fisher@ligo.org).

 Bob tells me that the carpenter is going to move the nitrogen bottles to the other side of the outside door, so that the plumbers can install a safety shower / eyewash right outside our door.

Also, the carpenter just mounted a new glass door cabinet from Bob's lab in the IFO room, so we have some new storage space.

Questions:

Power recycling gain

   * It should be ~40, but we observe/measure it to be ~7.  Even if mode matching of ~50% is assumed, gain is calculated to be ~15

   * Would like to measure PR gain independent of mode matching, if possible

Power recycling cavity mode matching

   * Reflectivity of PRMI was measured to be ~50%.  That's pretty high.  What's going on?

   * Even if we're mode matched to the arm, are we appropriately mode matched to the PRC?

Is beam from MC clipped in the Faraday?

   * We had to use MC axis for input pointing since PZTs aren't totally working.

   * Need to measure IPPOS beam for different MC alignments to see if horizontal waist measurement stays constant.

PRM flipped?

   * Not likely, but it can't hurt to confirm for sure.

   * Want to know, since it could give us a different plan for MMT moving than if the PRM is correct.

Thick optic non-normal incidence in IPPO - does this exaggerate astigmatism, which would help explain IPPOS measurement?

Is PRC waist same size / position as arm cavity waist, given the current "known" positions of all the optics?

   * How is this effected by moving the PRM?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Measurements to take and what information they give us:

IPPOS beam scan, with MC as-is

   * Confirm (or not) IPPOS measurements from last week

IPPOS beam scan with different MC alignments

   * Will tell us about Faraday clipping, if any

AS beam scan, misaligned PRM, misaligned SRM, misaligned ITMX, single bounce from ITMY

   * Can only take this measurement if beam is bright enough, so we'll just have to try

   * Will confirm IPPOS measurement, but includes going through the thick PRM, so can compare to calculated intra-PRC mode

REFL beam scan (already done....is the data satisfactory? If so, no need to redo), single bounce off of PRM

   * Will tell us about the potential PRM flipping

   * Need to compare with calculated mode at REFL port for flipped or non-flipped PRM

Look at POP camera, see 2nd pass through cavity

   * Try to match 1st and 2nd pass.  If they don't match, we're not well matched to PRC mode

Look at beam directly on ETMY cage, then beam from ETM, bounce off ITM, back to ETM cage

   * If the beams are the same size, we're well matched to arm cavity mode

   * Use fancy new frame-grabber.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

MMT code things to calculate, and what information it gives us:

REFL beam path, for PRM flipping comparison

Thick IPPO non-normal incidence - I'm not sure how to do this yet, since I only know how non-normal incidence changes effective radii of curvature, and this is a flat optic, so *cos(theta) or /cos(theta)  won't do anything to an infinite RoC

Compare PRC waist to arm cavity waist, using "known" optic positions

Mode matching sensitivity to MC waist measurements

Mode matching sensitivity to PRM position

Another histogram.  This one allows the MMT mirror positions to move, the MMT incident angle for both curved optics to change, and the MC waist size and position to change.  The error quoted for the MC waist size measurement from 2010

was +\- 0.01mm, and the MC waist position was +\- 28mm.  

This histogram is showing that we're pretty sensitive to the MC waist measurement, which is used to define the beam.  We can be up to ~2% off in our ideal mode matching to the arms if we're using the incorrect initial beam for the telescope design.

M4.7 - Santa Isabel, Mexico 2012-04-12 06:48:38 UTC

Mode Cleaner doesn't want to stay locked.  Seismic is coming down from an earthquake ~20min ago.  

We're in the process of measuring IPPOS, so this is obnoxious.

EDIT:  Followed by a 6.2 and a 7.1 at 07:06UTC and 07:15UTC in the same area.

We're following the tried and true tradition of going home when there's an earthquake big enough that the MC won't stay locked.

Several optics have rung up, PRM is the only one which has tripped so far, because the side sensor has the extra gain, but the watchdog threshold is set for the face OSEMs.

There's a beam dump after the HeNe on the BS oplev table, since the IPPOS measurement optics (steering mirrors) are in the way of the oplev beams. 

Don't enable the BS or PRM oplevs!!!!  We'll post a notice in the elog when the oplevs are back to normal. 

Self, remember to disable the oplevs manually if they come on with any restore scripts.

[Suresh, Jenne]

  The input beam is most probably being clipped at the Faraday Isolator.  

Evidence: 

a)  The beam scan of the IPPOS beam showed a nongaussian beam in the horizontal direction.  This was visible in the beam scan since it overlays a gaussian-fit over the data.

b)  I was able to remove this departure from gaussian profile by introducing an offset of 5 into the C1:IOO-WFS2_YAW_OFFSET.  

c)   We made a few measurements of the beam diameter as a function of distance at an offset of 7.  At a distance of beyond 3 m the deviation from gaussian profile was once again apparent. 

d)  We increased the offset to 14 to remove this deviation. 

e)  When we measured the beam diameter again with this new offset the horizontal diameter and vertical diameters dropped by 2.sigma.  Indicating there the beam was clipped till then.

f)   We increased the offset to 16 and the beam diameter did not change further (within 1.sigma). Implying no more clipping, hopefully. 

And then the earthquake stopped us from proceeding further. 

We plan to investigate this further to be sure..  Data attached.

Subsidiary effects to keep track of:

1) Introducing an offset into the WFS loops decreases the coupling from PSL into MC. 

2) If the beam is being clipped at the Faraday Isolator then the REFL beam would also show lesser clipping with WFS offsets.

I tried to figure out what can add noise below 0.5 Hz to the MC_F. I compared MC1, MC2, MC3 suspos, suspit, susyaw and susside positions with damping (black curves) and without (red curves). Local damping is fine.

Then I compared MC1, MC2, MC3 suspos, suspit, susyaw and susside positions with WFS on (black curve) and off (red curve). WFS add noise to MC1 and MC3 measured by osems (MC2 is fine though). WFS should change osem readings but is it a correct way to do this below 0.5 Hz (?) It looks like just a flat noise. Need to think about the conclusion.

    WFS servo is moving the MC mirror angles to minimise TEM01 and TEM10 modes within the MC cavity.    This means it will compensate not only for angular noise in the mirrors but also for the PSL beam pointing fluctuations.  So the extra "noise" we see when WFS loops are on is because they are active below the WFS UGF of about 2 Hz.  Also if the HEPA airflow is above 20% (of its max), the PSL beam jitter (caused by the airflow) will add broadband noise into the WFS servo loops and this will show up in the OSEM signals.  See elog 5943 for details.

GUR1 XYZ, GUR2 XYZ, MC_F channels are now recorded at 256 Hz.

EDIT by JCD:  What Den means to say here is that (a) he modified some .ini files, and (b) he restarted the fb.

The new hysteresis model uses a triangle wave with offset zero points as the position function and a sinusoidal force function, creating a loop similar to this. Model is at /users/mjenson/matlab/ferro_hyst.mdl.

I tried to determine an optimal WFS2YAW offset to be used so that we may avoid clipping.

Initially, I just measured the beam diameter as a function of offset.  If the beam diameter would become independent of offset if it is not clipped.  However a systematic effect became apparent when I shifted the beam on the detector to a slightly different location.  So I repeated the measurements while recentering the beam to the same location everytime  (centered at -1650+/- 50 for both H and V directions).

I have attached plots of the scans for both cases, with recentering and without.    I have not been able to figure out what is going on since the beam diameter does not become independent of the offset.  While the beam profile becomes more gaussian beyond offsets of about 7 or so, the beam diameter does not seem to follow a clear pattern.  The measurements are repeatable (within one sigma) so the experimental errors are smaller than 1 sigma.

The photographs below show the improvement of Horizontal beam profile with WFS2Yaw offset.  These seem to indicate a good gaussian beam for offsets beyond 7 or so.  At offsets more than 12 the MC unlocks.

Offset = -2	Offset = 0	Offset = 2	Offset = 8

This seems to indicate that the beam diameter does not vary for WFS2Yaw offset > 8	But if we recenter the beam for each measurement this effect seems to vanish

 Will continue tomorrow.   Jenne wants to do some IFO locking now.

I am locking some things, and have the PRM aligned, and it will stay locked for short periods of time, but as Kiwamu warned me, when the PRM alignment is better, the lock is more "crazy" and unstable.  This should go on our list of mysteries.

It's been a while since I think anyone has done it, and several optics were pretty far from centered, so I centered all of the oplevs except for SRM.

I am confident about my arm alignment, MICH and PRC (so BS, ITMX, ITMY, PRM, ETMX and ETMY), but I wasn't sure if I was getting SRC right, so I didn't touch the SRM's oplev.

Suresh removed all of the IPPOS measurement optics, so there was nothing blocking the BS and PRM oplevs.

However, the PRM oplev was ridiculously bad, and I don't know how long it's been that way.  Some of the optics shooting the beam into the chamber weren't optimally aligned, so the beam coming out of the chamber was hitting the lowest edge of the optic mount, for the first optic the beam encountered.  I adjusted the mirror launching the beam into the chamber by a teeny bit, so that the outcoming beam was ~horizontal and hitting the center of the first steering mirror in pitch.  I had to move that steering mirror a little to the right (if you are staring at the HR face of the mirror), to get the beam to come close to the horizontal center of the optic.  Then I proceeded to do normal oplev alignment.

Also, I've noticed lately that ITMX is noisier than all the other optics.  It's kind of annoying.  The sensor RMS values reported for the ITMX watchdogs for UL and LL are rarely below 2, and are often (~70% of the time?) above 3.  The SD RMS is a normal 1-ish.

I have installed ACAD 2002 on one of the Windows machines in the Control Room.    It is on the machine which has Solid Works (called C21530). 

The installation files are in MyDocuments under Acad2002.  This a shared LIGO license which Christian Cepada had with him.

I hope we will be able to open our optical layout diagrams with this and update them even though it is an old version.

Already not for the first time I notice that GUR2 readjusts its X zero position

As a result the coherence between GUR1X and GUR2X is lost, but between GUR2X and GUR2Y shows up. It seems that these two signals mix at some point.

 Can you go back in time before the X-position jumped to plot the x1-x2 and x2-y2 coherences?  Just to see what things look like?

DAQ is not working now but ordinary the coherence between GUR1X and GUR2X is ~1 at 0.1 - 10 Hz and between GUR2X and GUR2Y is ~0.

 The upgrade to the aLIGO Conlog is completed.  The conlog is once again running on megatron in a screen session. (see http://nodus.ligo.caltech.edu:8080/40m/6396)

I am continuing to attempt to upgrade the CDS system to RTS 2.5.  Systems will continue to be up and down for the rest of the day.

Upgrade progresses, but not complete.  There are some relatively minor issues, and one potentially big issue.

All new software has been installed, including the new epics that supports long channel names.

I've been doing a LOT of cleanup.  It was REALLY messy in there.

The new framebuilder/daqd code is running on fb.

Models are compiling with the new RCG and I am able to get them running.  Some of them are not compiling for relatively minor reasons (the simulink models need updating).  I'm also running into compile problems with IOPs that are using the dolphin drivers.

The major issue is that the framebuilder and the models are not syncing their timing, so there's no data collection.  I've spoken to Alex and he and Rolf are going to come over tomorrow to sort it out.  It's possible that we're missing timing hardware that the new code is expecting.

There are still some stability issues I haven't sorted out yet, and I have a lot more cleanup to do.

At this rate I'm going to shoot for being done Thursday.

Apparently there was a catastrophic power failure last night.  Bob says it took out power in most of Pasadena.

Bob checked the vacuum system when he got in first thing this morning and everything's back up and checks out.  The laster is still off and most of the front-end computers did not recover.

I'm going to start a boot fest now.  I'll be able to report more once everything is back on.

All of the front-ends are back up and I've been able to recover local control of all of the opitcs (snapshots from saturday). Issues:

• I can't lock the PMC.  Still unclear why.
• there are no oplev signals in MC1, MC2, and MC3
• Something is wrong with PRM.  He is very noisy.  Turning on his oplev servo makes him go crazy.
• There are all sorts of problems with the oplevs in general.  Many of the optics have no oplev settings.  This is probably not related to the power outage.

On a brighter note, ETMX is damped with it's new RCG 2.5 controller!  yay!

 None of the 3 MC optics have oplevs, so there shouldn't be any oplev signals. Although MC2 has the trans QPD, which was once (still is??) going through the MC2 oplev signal path.

PRM was noisy last week too.  But turning on his oplev shouldn't make him crazy. That's not so good. Try restoring PRM (the ! near the PRM label on the IFO align screen), then checking if his oplev is ~centered.  Maybe PRM wasn't in the nominal position at the time you restored from.

 Duh.  Unawake brain.  The MCs look fine.

The upgrade is nearly complete:

• new daqd code is running on fb
• the fe/daqd timing issue was resolved by adjusting the GPS offset in the daqdrc.  I will document this more later.
• the power outage conveniently rebooted all the front-end machines, so they're all now running new caRepeater
• all models have been successfully recompiled with RCG 2.5 (with only a couple small glitches)
• all new models are running on all front-end machines (with a couple exceptions)
• all suspension models seem to be damping under local control (PRM is having troubles that are likely unrelated to the upgrade).
• a lot of cleanup has been done

Remaining tasks/issues:

• more testing OF EVERYTHING needs o be done
• I did not yet update the DIS dolphin code, so we're running with the old code.  I don't think this is a problem, but it would be nice to get us running what they're running at the sites
• I tried to cleanup/simplify how front-end initialization is done.  However, there is a problem and models are not auto-starting after reboot.  This needs to be fixed.
• the userapps directory is in a new place (/opt/rtcds/userapps).  Not everything in the old location was checked into the repository, so we need to check to make sure everything that needs to be is checked in, and that all the models are running the right code.
• the c1oaf model seems to be having a dolphin issue that needs to be sorted
• the c1gfd model causes c1ioo to crash immediately upon being loaded.  I have removed it from the rtsystab.  That model needs to be fixed.
• general model cleanup is in order.
• more front-end cleanup is needed, particularly in regards to boot-up procedure.
• document the entire upgrade procedure.

I'll finish up these remaining tasks tomorrow.

Adaptive filter outputs some non-zero signal in the OFF position

I turned "ON" one of them and c1lsc suspended, I've rebooted it and restarted models on c1lsc and c1sus.

Now it also outputs something non-zero though the first line of the adaptive code is "if(OFF) output=0.0; return;" May be another version of the code has been compiled.

Edit: Old version (~september) of the code and oaf model is running now. In the 2.1 code there was a link from src/epics/simLink to oaf code for each DOF. It seems that 2.5 version finds models and c codes in standard directories. I need to move working code to the proper directory.

 Yes, things have changed.  Please wait until I have things cleaned up before working on models.  I'll explain what the new setup is.

The MC2 Oplev signal path has been modified in the c1mcs model.  The ADC channels have been sent over the rfm into c1ioo model and are currently used in the WFS servo loops.  Please see this elog 5397.

I have modified Arbcav to be way cooler than it used to be.

Main modifications:

• Can now truly model an arbitrary cavity geometry
  • The previous version could only handle a few different topologies. In each case, it would unfold the cavity into the equivalent linear cavity and use the g-parameter method to calculate gouy phases, etc.
  • The new model uses the closed cavity propagation matrix to find the supported mode, and then explicitly calculates the accumulated gouy phase by propagating the beam through the full cavity. This is done analytically with z_R, so there is negligible slow-down.
• Now plots a diagram of the cavity geometry, both to help you and for you to verify that it is calculating the right thing (<-- this is the cool part)
  • Plots the beam path and mirror locations
  • Specifies whether mirrors are curved or flat
  • Prints mirror parameters next to them
  • Finds all intracavity waist locations and plots them
  • Gives waist information (size in X, Y)

Since the information is already there, I will have the output structure include things like the input beam q parameter, which could then be fed directly to mode matching tools like ModeMatchr.

The function takes as input the same arguments as before. Example for a square cavity:

out = arbcav([200e-6 50e-6 200e-6 50e-6],[0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75],[1e10 9 1e10 9],[45 45 45 45],29.189e6,10e-6,1064e-9,1000);

i.e.,

out = arbcav(transmissivity_list, length_list, RoC_list, angle_list, modulation_freq, loss_list_or_loss_per_mirror, wavelength, num_pts_for_plot);

If you don't give it a modulation frequency, it will just plot carrier HOMs. If you don't give it RoCs and angles, it will just plot the transmission spectrum.

I'm still fine-tuning some functionality, but I should have it up on the SVN relatively soon. Comments or suggestions are welcome!

Some screenshots:

Cavity geometry plots (linear, triangular, square, bowtie):

Transmission and HOM spectra (these correspond to the square cavity at lower left, above):

 Here are the issues that I found not quite accurate in the old oaf code:

1. There is no need to calculate the norm of the witness signal every time from zero: 

norm += (*pBufAdapt) * (*pBufAdapt); // add to the norm 

Every step the witness signal vector is the same except the first and last values

wit[i].norm += histAdpt[nCoeff]*histAdpt[nCoeff] - histAdpt[0]*histAdpt[0];

 This step will reduce the number of multiplications and summations from 3*M/k to 2*M/k, M - filter length, k - downsample ratio.

2. Old code filter corrects filter coefficients with a delay equal to k=downsample ratio (pretty big):

witness       o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

error           o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

We want the filter to work at green points and skip red points computing output and correcting coefficients at this time (downsample ratio in this example is 4). Old code

• grabs error signal
• calculates output during next k-1 red points and 1 green point
• corrects coefficients using this error during next k-1 red points and 1 green point

But LMS algorithm should correct coefficients according to the latest error. As we calculate output and correct coefficients before the latest error signal will be available, we should change the order:

• grabs error signal
• corrects coefficients using this error during next k-1 red points and 1 green point
• calculates output during next k-1 red points and 1 green point

This scheme is completely equivalent to the ordinary LMS algorithm, as now we correct coefficients according to the latest error signal and so do not add any delay.

3. So long soft start is probably not needed for the LMS filter, it makes the filter to converge longer 

// modify adaptation gain for soft start

    if( state.iWait < state.nFIR )

    {

      adaptGain = 0.0;

      decayRate = 1.0;  // clear FIR coeffs after reset

    }

As far as I understand this is done to prevent the filter from huge coefficients variations in the beginning when norm is not calculated yet. Instead we can just introduce some small

epsilon = 10.0;

to prevent the filter from divergence in the beginning 

delta = mu * error / (wit[i].norm + epsilon);

Though some soft start might be needed by not so long - it will take several minutes before the adaptation gain will take it's specified value. 

I ran into a couple of snags today.

A big one is that the framebuilder daqd started going haywire when I told it to start writing frames.  After restart the logs started showing this:

[Fri Apr 20 17:23:40 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:41 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:42 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:43 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:44 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:45 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
GPS time jumped from 1019002442 to 1019003041
FATAL: exception not rethrown
FATAL: exception not rethrown
FATAL: exception not rethrown

and the network seemed like it started to get really slow.  I wasn't able to figure out what was going on, so I shut the frame writing off again.  I'll have to work with Rolf on that next week.

Another big problem is the workstation application upgrades.  The NDS protocol version has been incremented, which means that all the NDS client applications have to be upgraded.  The new dataviewer is working fine (on pianosa), but dtt is not:

controls@pianosa:~ 0$ diaggui
diaggui: symbol lookup error: /ligo/apps/linux-x86_64/gds-2.15.1/lib/libligogui.so.0: undefined symbol: _ZN18TGScrollBarElement11ShowMembersER16TMemberInspector
controls@pianosa:~ 127$ 

I don't know what's going on here.  All the library paths are ok.  Hopefully I'll be able to figure this out soon.  The old version of dtt definitely does not work with the new setup.

I might go ahead and upgrade some more of the workstations to Ubuntu in the next couple of days as well, so everything is more on the same page.

I also tried to cleanup the front-end boot process, which has it's own problems (models won't auto-start).  I haven't figured that out yet either.  It really needs to just be completely overhauled.

 DFT-LMS is a frequency domain adaptive filter that demonstrates faster convergence compared to the time-domain LMS filter. I've tested Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT-LMS) filter. It converts witness signal to the frequency domain using DFT and corrects the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix to make them as equal to each other as possible (does pre-whitenning of the witness signal).

Left plot compares learning curves for time domain LMS and DFT-LMS algorithms on the simulated data from seismometers and mcl (number of averages  = 30) Right plot shows the evolution of the filter coefficients norm (Euclidean norms of the coefficient vector). Though LMS algorithm works in the time domain and DFT-LMS in the frequency domain, the coefficient vectors must have the same length, because we Fourier Transform is achieved by applying a unitary operator => vector norm must not change.

Plots show that both algorithms converge to the same coefficients vector norm, but DFT-LMS does it much faster then LMS. 

Online realization: 

Good news: algorithm complexity is linear in filter length. Though the algorithm does Fourier transform, its complexity is still O(M), M - number of coefficients. Simulations show that DFT-LMS is ~8-9 times slower then LMS. This is not so bad, may be we can do even slightly better.

Bad news: downsample process is not simple. Due to Fourier transform, the filter needs the whole witness signal vector before calculating the output. This is sad and in contrast with LMS algorithm where we could start to calculate the new output immediately after computing the previous output. We either need to calculate the whole output immediately or introduce delay in the output or approximate Fourier transform with some previous witness signal values.

Realization in the kernel: I asked Alex about complex numbers, exponents, sin and cos functions in the kernel c and he answers that we do not have complex numbers, about exp, cos, sin he is not sure. But for DFT-LMS algorithm we are able to get round of these difficulties. Complex numbers will be presented as  2 real numbers. Then exp (a) = cos(a) + i*sin(a). All what we need for DFT-LMS are sin(2 * pi * k / M) and cos(2 * pi * k / M), k=0,1,2,...,M-1. Fortunately, M - (filter length) is big enough, typical value pi/M ~ 0.001 and we can calculate sin(2*pi/M) and cos(2*pi/M) using Taylor series. As the argument is small, 5-6 terms will be enough to get precision ~1e-20. Then we build the whole table of cos and sin according to induction cos(2*pi/M*k) = cos(2*pi/M*(k-1))cos(2*pi/M) - sin(2*pi/M*(k-1))sin(2*pi/M), sin(2*pi/M*k) = cos(2*pi/M*(k-1))sin(2*pi/M) + sin(2*pi/M*(k-1))cos(2*pi/M). We should do it only once, so the algorithm will build these values in the beginning during first several iterations, then will use them.

The main problem is downsampling. I need to think more about it.

controls@pianosa:~ 0$ diaggui
diaggui: symbol lookup error: /ligo/apps/linux-x86_64/gds-2.15.1/lib/libligogui.so.0: undefined symbol: _ZN18TGScrollBarElement11ShowMembersER16TMemberInspector
controls@pianosa:~ 127$

 dtt (diaggui) and dataviewer are now working on pianosa to retrieve realtime data and past data from DQ channels.

Unfortunately it looks like there may be a problem with trend data, though.  If I try to retrieve 1 minute of "full data" with dataviewer for channel C1:SUS-ITMX_SUSPOS_IN1_DQ around GPS 1019089138 everything works fine:

Connecting to NDS Server fb (TCP port 8088)
Connecting.... done
T0=12-04-01-00-17-45; Length=60 (s)
60 seconds of data displayed

but if I specify any trend data (second, minute, etc.) I get the following:

Connecting to NDS Server fb (TCP port 8088)
Connecting.... done
Server error 18: trend data is not available
datasrv: DataWriteTrend failed in daq_send().
T0=12-04-01-00-17-45; Length=60 (s)
No data output.

Alex warned me that this might have happened when I was trying to test the new daqd without first turning off frame writing.

I'm not sure how to check the integrity of the frames, though.  Hopefully they can help sort this out on Monday.

[Fri Apr 20 17:23:40 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:41 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:42 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:43 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:44 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
[Fri Apr 20 17:23:45 2012] main profiler warning: 0 empty blocks in the buffer
GPS time jumped from 1019002442 to 1019003041
FATAL: exception not rethrown
FATAL: exception not rethrown
FATAL: exception not rethrown

So the framebuilder/daqd frame writing issue seems to have been a transient one.  Alex said he tried enabling frame writing manually and it worked fine, so I tried re-enabling the frame writing config lines and sure enough it worked fine.  So it's a mystery.  Alex said the "main profiler warning" lines tend to show up when data is backed up in the buffer, although he didn't explain why exactly that would have been the issue here.

daqdrc frame writing directives:

start frame-saver;
sync frame-saver;
start trender;
start trend-frame-saver;
sync trend-frame-saver;
start minute-trend-frame-saver;
sync minute-trend-frame-saver;
start raw_minute_trend_saver;

Connecting to NDS Server fb (TCP port 8088)
Connecting.... done
T0=12-04-01-00-17-45; Length=60 (s)
60 seconds of data displayed

Connecting to NDS Server fb (TCP port 8088)
Connecting.... done
Server error 18: trend data is not available
datasrv: DataWriteTrend failed in daq_send().
T0=12-04-01-00-17-45; Length=60 (s)
No data output.

Alex told me that the "trend data is not available" message comes from the "trender" functionality not being enabled in daqd.  After re-enabling it (see #6555) minute trend data was available again.  However, there still seems to be an issue with second trends.  When I try to retrieve second trend data from dataviewer for which minute trend data *is* available I get the following error message:

Connecting to NDS Server fb (TCP port 8088)
Connecting.... done
No data found

read(); errno=9
read(); errno=9
T0=12-04-04-02-14-29; Length=3600 (s)
No data output.

Awaiting more help from Alex...

Tonight I wanted to measure the ambient noise level using Blue Bird mics and figure out if Panasonic WM61a or Primo EM172/173 will be good enough or not. Blue Bird that is in the control room does not seem to work. May be the problem is with the pre-amplifier. The output measured by ADC/Oscilloscope is noise ( amplitude=5mV ). I will return to this issue tomorrow.

Local eq shakes the lab

We received 6 new  chairs stools for the work benches that have 36" heights.

The control room east side and general office desks require 18" seat height. The new chairs stools have  minimum seat heights  26"

Please label chairs that we are getting rid of.

The new rtcds utility

I have written a new utility for interacting with the CDS RTS/RCG system: "rtcds".  It should be available on all workstations and front-end machines, but certain commands are restricted to run on certain front end machines (build, start, stop, etc.).  Here's the help:

controls@c1lsc ~ 0$ rtcds help
Usage: rtcds <command> [arg]

Available commands:

  build|make SYS      build model
  install SYS         install model
  start SYS|all       start model
  restart SYS|all     restart running model
  stop|kill SYS|all   stop running model
  list                list all models for current host

controls@c1lsc ~ 0$ 

Please use this new utility from now on when interacting with RTS.

I'll be improving and expanding it as we go.   Please let me know if you encounter any problems.

Connecting to NDS Server fb (TCP port 8088)
Connecting.... done
No data found

read(); errno=9
read(); errno=9
T0=12-04-04-02-14-29; Length=3600 (s)
No data output.

It looks like this is actually just a limit of how long we're saving the second trends, which is just not that long.  I'll look into extending the second trend look-back.

NOTE: Unless you really care about what's going on under the hood, please ignore this entire post and go here: USE THE NEW RTCDS UTILITY

 An important new aspect of this upgrade is that we have some new directories and some of the code paths have moved to correspond with the "standard" LIGO CDS filesystem hierarchy:

• rtscore:      /opt/rtcds/rtscore/release       -->  RTS RCG source code (svn: adcLigoRTS)
• userapps: /opt/rtcds/userapps/release  -->  CDS userapps source for models, RCG C code, medm screens, scripts, etc (svn: cds_user_apps)
• rtbuild:       /opt/rtcds/caltech/c1/rtbuild    -->  RCG build directory

All work should be done in the "userapps" directory, and all builds should be done in the build directory.  Some important points:

WARNING: DO NOT MODIFY ANYTHING IN RTSCORE

This is important.  The rtscore directory is now just where the RCG source code is stored.  WE NO LONGER BUILD MODELS IN THE RTS SOURCE  Please use the rtbuild directory instead.

NO MORE MODEL/CODE SYMLINKS

You don't need to link you model or code anywhere to get it to compile.  The RCG now uses proper search paths to source in the RCG_LIB_PATH to find the needed source.  This has been configured by the admin, so as long as you put your code in the right place it should be found.

ALL CODE/MODELS/ETC GO IN USERAPPS

All RTS code is now stored ENTIRELY in the userapps directory (e.g. /opt/rtcds/userapps/release/isc/c1/models/c1lsc.mdl).  This is more-or-less the same as before, except that symlinking is no longer necessary.  I have placed a symlink at the old location for convenience.

BUILD ALL MODELS IN RTSCORE

You can run "make c1lsc" in the rtbuild directory, just as you used to in the old core directory.  However, don't do that.  USE THE NEW RTCDS UTILITY instead.

I've installed Blue Bird microphone to listen to the acoustic noise at the PSL near PMC.

Coherence between MC_F and Blue Bird output (C1:PEM-ACC_MC2_Z for now) is changing from low to high value at frequencies 20 - 200 Hz with period ~1 min. Maybe HEPA works with some periodicity. Now it works pretty hard, ~80% of max.

 I detached Clyde (pre-amp that was in the control room) to understand why it is not working. I seems that the board circuit is burnt near R40, R47, R45.

 Blue Bird Mic is suspended close to PMC now and outputs ~10 counts when pre-amp gain is 8 dB. This means that the mic outputs ~2.42 mV. Its sensitivity is 27 mV/Pa => acoustic noise is ~0.1 Pa or ~75 dB SPL.

If we buy Panasonic WM61A with their sensitivity -35 dB => they will output ~1.7 mV. We can amplify this signal without adding significant noise. For WM61A S/N ratio is given to be 62 dB. This is for some standard signal that is not specified. For Blue Bird mic it is specified according to IEC 651. So I assume SPL of the standard signal = 94 dB => noise level of WM61A is 32 dB (pretty bad compared to 7 dB-A of Blue Bird). But in our case for PSL S/N ratio is ~43 dB that is not too bad. PSL is noisy due to HEPA, acoustic noise level close to MC2 stack will be less. So we may want to consider Primo EM172/173 where the noise level is claimed to be 18 dB less. I think we should buy several WM61A and EM172.

It looks like we should change the "R40" and "R47" diodes.  If you do it this week, ask Jamie or Koji to check that you've got them oriented correctly before soldering them and plugging it in.

Usually R is for resistors and D is for diodes. Do you think from the schematic that we should put diodes into the R slots?

 That guys are resistors.

[Koji, Den]

We have aligned PMC,  the WFS are not working yet.