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Flexible, expandable and inexpensive automation system for diffractometers, spectrometers and other devices, containing stepping motors, x-ray detectors, relay elements and binary sensors (limit switches, etc.). It may include also any specified number of scintillation or proportional detectors. Other devices types may be incorporated on request.

The system contains one or more microprocessor system controllers connected with PC via USB or Ethernet channel, and a set of power driver cards assembled in 19" 3U racks. Each controller is supporting up to 14 device driver cards installed in a common rack. The device driver card types include:

• Stepping motor drivers (SM) for 2, 4, 5 or 6 phase motors;

• Angle encoder counters (AE)

• Drivers of arrays of 8 relay elements (RE), as shutters, relays, etc.;

• Controllers of scintillation detectors SCSD;

• Detector channels for proportional detectors;

• Detector high-voltage power supplies

• Sound indicator module

• ADC and DAC's.

• Other device types may be included on request.

The picture above shows a sample implementation of the system. This configuration supports 12 stepping motors and 8 relay elements with driver cards assembled in the upper rack (equipped with a ventilator fan compartment underneath), as well as 7 detector channels, assembled in the lower rack. The system shown is used to control a vacuum diffractometer with secondary emission registration channels at Samsung Corporation, Korea.

For SM's the system supports the following features:

• Switching power on and off to fix or loose SM's for manual rotation;

• Stand-by power mode to reduce the power consumption and heating;

• Voltage forcing at each step to improve torque and speed;

• Programmable frequency, acceleration and step size;

• Polling up to 3 binary sensors (two limit switches and one zero reference);

• Reception of external INHIBIT signal to suspend the operation until the signal is removed.

• Fast positioning with acceleration and retardation.

• Optional motor overheat control with a thermocouple.

For X-ray detectors the system supports:

• Computer control of high voltage and discriminator threshold levels;

• Preset time, preset count and continuous (ratemeter) measurement modes;

• Single-start and cycled operation;

• Sound monitoring of the photon flux;

• Continuous mode of "AE-detector" operation

For RE's the system supports:

• Switching on and off;

• Low-consuming stand-by mode;

• Polling of a status sensor (ON or OFF).

The USB controller and the higher-level software do not depend on the SM type used. Just appropriate power supplies and driver cards should be installed into the power rack.

Modular power supply in the power rack is compact and easily reconfigurable any device types. Any combination of standard 5, 12 and 24V voltages is available. Other voltages are available on request.

The system operates under Windows software RHS (Radicon Hardware Server). Configuration of the system is interactive, one can create and describe new devices in configuration dialog box. Each device requires a power drive (PD) card in the power rack. This makes the system easy to expand.

The following two pictures show some tools aimed to control stepping motors and X-ray detectors, offered by RHS.

The hardware server represents a command library with graphical interface to initiate single events in the system. The higher-level software RDPW enables the user to write, save and run the command scripts specific to a particular experiment type. Software provides accumulation of experimental data with real-time visual control and saving them to ASCII files, from which they can be retrieved and treated by appropriate application packages.

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