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Abstract

The European XFEL is an X-ray free-electron laser (FEL) facility located in Schenefeld, in the vicinity of Hamburg, Germany. With a total length of 3.4 kilometers, the facility provides seven scientific instruments with extremely intense X-ray flashes ranging from the soft to the hard X-ray regime. The dimension of the beam transport and the technologies used to make this X-ray FEL unique have led to the design and buildup of a challenging and adaptable control system based on a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). Six successful years of user operation, which started in September 2017, have required constant development of the beam transport in order to provide new features and improvements for the scientific community to perform their research activities. The framework of this contribution is focused on the photon beamline, which starts at the undulator section and guides the X-ray beam to the scientific instruments. In this scope, the control system topology and this adaptability to integrate new devices through the PLC Management System (PLCMS) are described. In 2022, a new distribution mirror was installed in the SASE3 beam transport system to provide photon beams to the seventh and newest scientific instrument, named Soft X-ray Port (SXP). To make the scope of this paper more practical, this new installation is used as an example. The integration in the actual control system of the vacuum devices, optic elements, and interlock definition are described.

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