Speaker
Description
The 2028 installation phase of CERN's High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) project will require precise positioning of hundreds of accelerator components and accompanying infrastructure within extremely tight integration tolerances. Floor tracing of reference marks is an important prerequisite for installation activities, providing the geometric references used by installation teams before final alignment operations. Traditionally, these stake-out operations are performed manually by surveyors using total station, a reliable but time-consuming and physically demanding process over long distances.
To address these challenges, CERN's Geodetic Metrology group has evaluated the HP SitePrint robotic tracing system as a potential solution for large-scale floor marking during Long Shutdown 3 (LS3). Beyond the assessment of the robot itself, the project focused on the development of a new survey workflow enabling its integration into CERN's alignment and installation processes.
A comprehensive experimental campaign was conducted in accelerator tunnel conditions to evaluate the robot's performance in terms of accuracy and repeatability but also to further study its operational robustness and compatibility with current CERN operations.
A new workflow was also developed to streamline data creation and communication between surveyors, equipment owners and databases. This involved adapting and enhancing tools to handle the rising number of tracing requests in the denser installation environment.
This paper will introduce the resulting workflow establishing a straightforward methodology for the automated tracing of accelerator components and services, as well as the strategy implemented for future tracing activities during the HL-LHC tracing campaign scheduled for 2027.
