The commissioning of the LHC technical systems

The LHC is an accelerator with unprecedented complexity where the energy stored in magnets and the beams exceeds other accelerators by one-to-two orders of magnitude. To ensure a safe and efficient machine start-up without being plagued by technical problems, a phase of "hardware commissioning" was introduced: a thorough commissioning of technical systems without beam. This activity started in June 2005 with the commissioning of individual systems, followed by operating a full sector, one eighth of the machine; the commissioning is expected to last until spring 2008 when commissioning with beam will start. The LHC architecture allows the commissioning of each of the eight sectors independently from the others, before the installation of other sectors is complete. An important effort went into the definition of the programme and the organization of the coordination in the field, as well as in the preparation of the tools to record and analyze test results. This paper discusses the experience with this approach, presents results from the commissioning of the first LHC sector and gives an outlook for future activities.