Controlling a beam-driven plasma-wakefieldacceleration experiment

The FLASHForward project at DESY is an innovative beam-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration experi-ment integrated in the FLASH facility, aiming to accelerate electron beams to GeV energies over a few centi-metres of ionised gas. These accelerated beams are tested for their capability to demonstrate exponential free-electron laser gain; achievable only through rigorous analysis of both the driver and witness beam's phase space.The thematic priority covered in here the control system part of FLASHForward.To be able to control, read out and save data from the diagnostics into DAQ, the DOOCS control system has been integrated into FLASH Forward. Laser beam control, over 70 cameras, ADCs, timing system and mo-torised stages are combined into the one DOOCS control system as well as vacuum and magnet controls. Micro TCA for Physics (MTCA.4) is the solid basic computing system, supported from high power worksta-tions for camera read-out and normal Linux computers