Cryogenic Control Systems- ICEoxford

We helped to develop control software for a leading cryogenic company based in Oxford. ICEoxford create custom high performance and ultra low temperature systems which are used by leading institutions around the world.

Background

ICEoxford design and manufacture specialist ultra low temperature (ULT) equipment for the cryogenic research community. Founded in 2004, they have grown to become a leading supplier of custom design, high performance cryogenic systems for scientific and cryogenics research groups throughout the world.

Our initial brief was to significantly develop their existing software to control and monitor their systems. Our expertise meant that we were quickly able to take the existing software and modify it for a custom system that needed to be shipped to a customer on a tight deadline.

Requirements

The requirements of the initial modification plan included additional control and monitoring of a magnet which was integrated into their current cryogenic system. We also took on the versioning and storage of the existing project into our robust source code control system. Finally, as the company had recently undergone some branding changes, we were asked to apply our design skills to the front panel to give the software a new look.

Following the successful initial modification project, we were asked to undertake a complete overhaul of the software. We set up a new architecture which allowed a single piece of software to be configured in multiple ways depending on the users hardware set-up. This meant that ICEoxford would only need to have a single piece of software rather than multiple versions each specific to the customer.  

Results

The work we delivered for ICEoxford was considered a great success. The software re-design allowed complex configuration files to be replaced by a single, easy to edit configuration file. Old features which were never fully were removed and the new software architecture brought the software up to date, making it scalable and easy to work on should future changes be required. The code became more efficient and robust allowing us to enable and disable features based on the configuration file and the users hardware configuration.

Used in this project

Software

LabVIEW, Perforce, third party drivers

Hardware & Interfaces

Lake Shore 336 Temperature Control Unit, AMI Magnet Power Control Unit, NI DAQ, Inficon pressure gauge

Skills

LabVIEW architecture analysis & code review, control and monitoring.