ICALEPCS 2005, the tenth International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, 10-14 Oct. 2005 at the International Conference Center Geneva (CICG). ICALEPCS 2005 thus falls in the year that UNESCO has declared the "World Year of Physics".
ICALEPCS covers all aspects of control and operation of Experimental Physics facilities such as particle accelerators, particle detectors, optical telescopes, radio telescopes, nuclear fusion facilities like Tokamaks, nuclear reactors, lasers, etc ....
The series of ICALEPCS conferences started in 1987 in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. The idea to hold a series of biennial Conferences in the field of controls for Experimental Physics facilities was launched by the European Physical Society's (EPS) Interdivisional Group on Experimental Physics Control Systems (EPCS). It was actually triggered by some earlier initiatives, which commenced in Berlin (EPS Conference on Computing in Accelerator Design and Operation, September 1983), followed by two specific workshops on accelerator control systems in 1985 respectively at BNL (Brookhaven, USA) and LANL (Los Alamos, USA)
ICALEPCS has moved around the world: the second ICALEPCS, in 1989, was held in Vancouver, hosted by TRIUMF; the 1991 event was held in Tsukuba, hosted by KEK; in 1993 it was hosted by the HMI in Berlin; in 1995 it was held in Chicago, hosted by both Fermilab and the APS of ANL; in 1997 it was organised by the IHEP in Beijing, China; in 1999 by Sincrotrone Trieste, Italy; and in 2001 in San Jose hosted by SLAC. Most recently, ICALEPCS’2003, was held in Gyeongju, South Korea, 13-17 Oct. 2003, hosted by the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory and the Pohang University of Science and Technology.
Over the years ICALEPCS has seen its number of participants growing and as such also the number of contributing Institutes and countries. There were e.g. more than 400 participants at ICALEPCS 1997 in Beijing, and ICALPECS 1999 in Trieste. They were control specialists from more than 30 different countries covering Africa, America, Asia, and Europe, representing well over the one hundred organizations (scientific institutes and industries).
ICALEPCS thus offers a unique opportunity to all those involved in the challenging field of controls for experimental physics worldwide to hear about the latest developments, new projects, the latest technologies being applied, and to discuss problems and solutions with peers from the world's major laboratories, to identify new issues, and to shape future directions for research.
ICALEPCS 2005 is organized by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), and co-organized by the "Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas" (CRPP) of the "École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne" (EPFL), the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School of Lausanne, and the European Physical Society (EPS) Interdivisional Group on Experimental Physics Control Systems (EPCS). It is held under the auspices of he European Physical Society (EPS), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) through its Nuclear and Plasma Science Society (NPSS), the Association of Asia Pacific Physics Societies (AAPPS), the American Physical Society (APS), the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) through its Technical Committee on Computer Applications in Technology (TC5).
Similar to previous events, ICALEPCS 2005 will consist of plenary and parallel oral sessions as well as poster sessions, some with life demos. An industrial programme will run concurrently giving companies involved in our field the opportunity to exhibit their latest development and to present their views on the evolution of their technology as well as their strategy.
Technical visits are planned e.g. to CERN and the EPFL-CRPP Tokamak.