Tango Controls Workshop @ ICALEPCS 2025 Chicago, IL, USA

Saturday Sep 20, 2025, 5:10 AM → 5:30 PM US/Central

Palmer House Hilton

Thomas Juerges (SKAO)

This workshop is a continuation in the series of ICALEPCS workshops on Tango Controls. Tango is a toolkit for building modern distributed control systems in C++, Python, and/or Java. It is prepared for people who are new to Tango but also for those who want to get an update on the latest tools in Tango. The workshop provides hands-on exercises and examples which attendees can try during or after the workshop. Attendees will acquire a good understanding of the concepts of Tango and its tools for building an object oriented distributed control system.

Prerequisites for participants (per talk)

All

• OS:
  • Linux
  • macOS
  • Windows only with WSL2
• python3
• pip3
• Create and use a Python virtual environment:
  • python/python3 -m venv my_virtual_env
  • source my_virtual_env/bin/activate

 

PyTango

• pip install --require-virtualenv itango3

 

Pogo

• Download Pogo 9.9.1
• C++ example: g++/clang++
• Python example: Python3, PyTango (automatically installed when iTango3 is installed)

 

Testing & Debugging Tango

• pip install --require-virtualenv itango3

 

8:00 AM → 9:00 AM Registration

9:00 AM → 9:05 AM Welcome

Speaker: Thomas Juerges (SKAO)

9:05 AM → 9:45 AM What is Tango Controls?

Introduction into the world of Tango Controls, an object oriented SCADA framework for hardware and software-only devices.

URL: https://tango-controls.org/

Speakers: Thomas Braun (byte physics e.K.), Thomas Juerges (SKAO)

9:45 AM → 10:30 AM The best of two worlds: Python + Tango = PyTango

PyTango is a python module that exposes to Python the complete Tango C++ API. This means that you can write not only Tango applications (scripts, CLIs, GUIs) that access Tango device servers but also Tango device servers themselves, all of this in pure python.

URL: https://tango-controls.readthedocs.io/projects/pytango/en/stable/

Speaker: Yury Matveev (DESY)

10:30 AM → 11:00 AM Tea & Coffee Break

11:00 AM → 11:30 AM POGO: Tango Controls devices made easy

An interactive session where we will explore POGO: The source code tool for Tango Controls devices.

URL: https://gitlab.com/tango-controls/pogo/

Speaker: Thomas Juerges (SKAO)

11:30 AM → 12:00 PM Tango GUIs in Python with Taurus

Taurus is a python framework for control and data acquisition CLIs and GUIs in scientific/industrial environments. It supports multiple control systems or data sources: Tango, EPICS, … New control system libraries can be integrated through plugins.

For non-programmers: Taurus allows the creation of fully-featured GUI (with forms, plots, synoptics, etc) from scratch in a few minutes using a “wizard”, which can also be customized and expanded by drag-and-dropping elements around at execution time.

For programmers: Taurus gives full control to more advanced users to create and customize CLIs and GUIs programmatically using Python and a very simple and economical API which abstracts data sources as “models”.

URL: https://taurus-scada.org/

Speaker: Emilio Morales (ALBA Synchrotron.)

12:00 PM → 12:30 PM Sardana: SCADA with Tango Controls

Sardana is a software suite for Supervision, Control and Data Acquisition in scientific installations. It aims to reduce cost and time of design, development and support of the control and data acquisition systems. Sardana development was started at the ALBA synchrotron and today is supported by a larger community which includes several other laboratories and individuals (ALBA, DESY, MaxIV, Solaris, ESRF).

URL: https://www.sardana-controls.org/

Speaker: Zbigniew Reszela (ALBA Synchrotron)

12:30 PM → 2:00 PM Lunch break

2:00 PM → 2:45 PM Alarms and Alarm Handling in Tango Controls

Speakers: Lukasz Zytniak (S2INNOVATION), Thomas Juerges (SKAO)

2:45 PM → 3:30 PM HDB++: The memory of Tango Controls

In Tango Controls the archiving of attribute vales is the job of HDB++: The Historical Database++. In its simplest form HDB++ comprises of a Tango device server, an interface library and relational database that servers as the storage backend.

URL: https://tango-controls.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Explanation/archiving/hdbpp.html

Speaker: Reynald Bourtembourg (ESRF)

3:30 PM → 4:00 PM Tea & Coffee Break

4:00 PM → 4:45 PM Testing & Debugging in Tango Controls

Speaker: Thomas Ives (Observatory Sciences Ltd)

4:45 PM → 5:15 PM Q & A: Ask us anything!

An open mic session for everybody to ask their questions, give answers, raise doubts, share their ideas and for discussion about how Tango Controls could fit your needs.

Speakers: Emilio Morales (ALBA Synchrotron.), Lukasz Zytniak (S2INNOVATION), Reynald Bourtembourg (ESRF), Thomas Braun (byte physics e.K.), Thomas Ives (Observatory Sciences Ltd), Thomas Juerges (SKAO), Zbigniew Reszela (ALBA Synchrotron)

5:15 PM → 5:30 PM Closing session

Speaker: Thomas Juerges (SKAO)