A fast and versatile interlock system

The paper presents an interlock system which meets these requirements. The system has a modular design consisting of an arbitrary number of identically distributed modules which are connected to a dedicated interlock bus. Each module monitors 10 analog signals for the up- or downward violation of a programmable threshold and triggers one or several programmable interlock signals with only the transmission line delay. Nevertheless, the configuration of these modules is done via software. This makes the system fast and flexible at the same time. The risk of a malfunction is minimized by redundancy and self-surveillance of the interlock bus.