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Discussion: How to handle beamlines with shared optics? #1550
Description
Brought up by @oliwenmandiamond during an athena drop in session
We should agree on and document a standard way to handle beamlines with shared optics (eg i19-1 and i19-2). We need a sensible way of protecting against one of these beamlines trying to control a device which is in use by the other beamline, probably using some kind of baton management. We should avoid a solution which requires the developer to constantly be checking against some variable, as is the case in GDA.
Acceptance Criteria
- Solution agreed upon and documented
Activity
fajinyuan commentedon Sep 18, 2025
First it should cover all shared devices, not only optics as suggested in the title.
Second we need to collect all use cases from beamlines with multiple end stations and branches. I already added MMG and SSG beamlines use cases at #1530.
Third we need to clear define the terminoloy used here - what we means by baton management, if it is the same definition as Baton in GDA then it will not do the work MMG+SSG beamlines' use case - in which Baton is used for user access to any devices, not just shared devices. We need something more that give beamline scientist usually PBS or user office the ability to set which end station or branch should have control of shared devices - currently this was done on beamline uses an EPICS PV with is set by PBS or hardware position.