E9, London, United Kingdom
Building a control system for a scientific facility is a complex process that requires a lot of time coordination and the cooperation of hundreds of people. The latest of our control system for 10 J 100 Hz laser system happened to be built when access to the lab was much more difficult, due to the pandemic that made travel much more complex, and local restrictions at one point prevented large number of people from being in the lab at the same time. This paper shows how, despite the demanding working conditions, we built the control system for the 10 J 100 Hz laser. The control system was designed in collaboration with CLF (STFC, UK) and HiLASE (Institute of Physics, ASCR). The whole process of building the laser control system was divided into stages and we had to rely on remote working. This article discusses how we adapted each stage to work remotely, what tools we used, how we minimised the risks, and what we would have done differently if we had started from scratch.
