The ITER Interlock Control System (ICS) requires the application of the IEC61508 standard for all mission-critical (known as investment protection) control functions. Such functions at nuclear fusion facilities present a unique challenge where events from integrated physics processes need to be detected and distributed to actuators with hard real-time constraints in the order of single-digit...
SPIDER - the ITER full-size beam source built at the Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) in Padova, Italy – has been in operation since June 2018. SPIDER’s mission is to optimize the operation of the beam source so that to reuse the SPIDER experience on the full-size prototype of the ITER Neutral Beam Injector, called MITICA, under advanced construction at the NBTF, and in the ITER heating...
Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) Fast Interlock System (FIS) event counter assigns counter values to various events occurring during plasma discharge. It is one of the KSTAR FIS functions that make it possible to check the order of event occurrence. It is made using the operation clock of the FPGA in synchronization with the timing signal received from KSTAR Time...
The Central Interlock System (CIS) is in charge of implementing the ITER Central Investment Protection Functions. A dedicated architecture based on hardwired loops will be responsible for the protection of the superconductive magnet system. These loops act in a transversal way connecting all systems directly involved in the protection of the magnets at the plant level. The base of the...
The data management system for the plant monitoring data has been developed for JT-60SA. The plant monitoring data are continuously acquired for 24 hours for the purpose of monitoring the condition of the hardware systems such as baking, cryogenic and vacuum exhausting systems of the JT-60SA tokamak. In the case of the previous device, JT-60, the plant monitoring data were not acquired into...
As a sub-project of the Broader-Approach activity between Japan and EU, preparation of ITER Remote Experimentation Centre (REC) is ongoing in Rokkasho Fusion Institute of QST, Japan toward remote participation in the ITER plasma experiments. In this study, current proposals of REC system, including a segment to be connected with ITER via VPN for remote participation, are reported....
The plasma control system of the Joint European Torus (JET) is distributed and heterogeneous. This modularity has advantages in separating concerns that span several engineering domains, but creates integration challenges. This paper examines these issues in relation to the JET RF real-time control system. It describes how the system software has evolved over decades to respond to project...
Currently, National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" is working on the tokamak T-15 modernization. Plasma parameters (current, position, the shape of plasma cord, electron density, and energy content) on the T-15MD tokamak are controlled by an electromagnetic system, dynamic gas injection, and a complex of additional plasma heating systems (neutral beam injection, ion-cyclotron,...
One of the key requirements for large tokamak operation is a reliable handling of off-normal states such as failures in some subsystems and their combination, not all necessarily known a priori. Handling these issues requires advanced and flexible algorithms for decision logic to ensure a reliable, while still scalable system.
Our work focuses on the tokamak ASDEX Upgrade. The ASDEX Upgrade...
Abstract:
MT-1 a small spherical Tokamak in Pakistan, is the modified version of GLAST-II (Glass Spherical Tokamak) wherein glass vacuum vessel has been replaced by metallic vessel. Its major and minor radii are 15 and 9 cm respectively. Various coil systems for generation of toroidal , poloidal magnetic fields and toroidal electric field are installed. Diagnostic systems like Rogowski...
DCS (Discharge Control System) is the IPP C++ real-time framework for plasma control at ASDEX Upgrade. Since 2016, the 2011 version of DCS has been used routinely for WEST plasma control without any kind of major issue. However, some errors occur in the interfaces with the WEST CODAC Infrastructures. Although it is not a security issue (machine integrity and operator security are not at risk),...
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) was built to demonstrate high-power, long-pulse operations under fusion-relevant conditions, which has ITER-like fully superconductive coils and water-cooled tungsten (W) mono-block structure. In order to construct distributed real-time subsystems for control and verify the performance of real-time framework (RTF) of ITER, the radiation...
TCV has a flexible, digital, distributed control system for testing experimental control algorithms, acquiring data from hundreds of diagnostic channels and controlling all magnetic, heating and fueling actuators. We present the state of the system, focusing on the latest upgrades, and the key control capabilities enabled by the system. The control algorithm code is developed and maintained in...
JET experiments include feedback control implemented via the real-time central controller (RTCC). This system is highly data driven. Controllers can be adapted and tuned during experimental sessions by expert users. The original implementation has been expanded and updated many times. For future campaigns, further growth in terms of both capacity and capability is desirable, but this is not...
A set of MDSplus devices which abstract MARTe2 components and their communications has been developed. As these are applied to real applications, they are being refined and expanded. Generic versions of the Simulink and python GAMs have been developed obviating the need to create a new MDSplus device type for each simulink component or python routine. These provide a mechanism to quickly...
EAST experimental uses MDSplus database for various data storage.The user accesses the data through the API it provides.MDSPlus stores abundant experimental data, but lacks a resource directory, which makes it difficult for users to have a quick overview of experimental data.
This paper proposes a solution to the Metadata Database based on MongoDB.Firstly, the system uses C ++ language to...
The key to developing integrated modeling and data analysis tools is to realize data exchange between different data sources (experimental database, IO for simulation code, etc.). A data integration toolkit (SpDB) was developed to access different data sources using a global unified schema defined by the ITER Physical Data Model. Data consists of the data schema and data format. The definition...
Fusion-related experiments (WEST, MAST, JET, etc...) produce large amounts of data. In the future, we can expect ITER to produce an equally large amount of raw data coming from each and every shot.
Even though (fusion community as a whole) collects large sets of data, scientists suffer from a lack of an amalgamated shot catalogue and different access requirements. At the moment, finding...
Despite continued efforts to engineer a standardized infrastructure, through regular hardware and software upgrades and refactoring, the WEST CODAC still includes several subsystems based on Motorola PowerPC VME boards running LynxOS V3.1. There lies a major challenge for the years to come in maintaining and operating more than 10 such entities some of which, such as the poloidal field control...
MITICA is one of the two ongoing experiments at the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) located in Padova (Italy). MITICA aims to develop the full-size neutral beam injector of ITER and, as such, its Control and Data Acquisition System will adhere to ITER CODAC directives. In particular, its timing system will be based on the IEEE1588 PTPv2 protocol and will use the ITER Time Communication...
The model of Russian Remote Participation Center (RPC) was created under the contract between Russian Federation Domestic Agency (RF DA) and ROSATOM as the prototype of full-scale Remote Participation Center for ITER experiments and for coordination activities in the field of Russian thermonuclear research.
- Investigation of the high-speed data transfer via existing public networks...
We introduce a novel client-server Web platform for data access, processing, analysis, and visualization. The platform was designed to simultaneously meet a set of capabilities not available in a joint way in similar software systems. The platform: (a) provides secure access to large amounts of data hosted in institutional data servers; (b) allows users to operate in any modern device...
The DIII-D National Fusion Facility is a large international user facility with over 800 active participants. Experiments are routinely conducted throughout the year with the control room being the focus of activity. Although experiments on DIII-D have involved remote participation for decades, and even have been led by remote scientists, the physical control room always remained filled with...
The operation of ITER is expected to happen not only directly in the ITER control room, but also to benefit from human capital from around the globe. Each ITER participating country could create a remote participation room and follow the progress of experiments in relatively real time. Scientists from all over the world can collaborate on experiments at the same time as they are performed....
ITER is now in full construction phase, with many plant systems being installed and commissioned. Plant service systems – electricity, liquid and gas supplies, water cooling, building monitoring – are being gradually commissioned and handed over for operation. Other systems, such as plasma diagnostics, are being developed and tested on site or at the ITER parties, to be installed later during...
With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in spring 2020, experimental operations at ASDEX Upgrade came to a temporary halt, as for health reasons and due to regulations, many of the people necessary for operations and the scientific programme could not enter the institute premises, and only a very small number of people were allowed to enter the control room itself.
However, thanks to the...
During March 2020 it became obvious that the Covid-19 infection rates were accelerating in the UK and that we would be heading for a National lockdown. It was decided to put JET into a safe state. The site was then shut down, all but for a skeleton staff, there to ensure essential safety and security, with everyone else working from home. Over the next couple of months arrangements were made...
The ASDEX Upgrade diagnostics have provided scientists with the experimental data required to advance the fusion field for 30 years. In this time, the systems and diagnostics of the machine have evolved. Many solutions combined commercial products with in-house productions of state-of-the-art data-acquisition hardware. However, with the ever-increasing advances of the computing industry,and...
The SPIDER experiment (Source for the Production of Ions of Deuterium Extracted from a Radio frequency plasma) is a prototype devoted to the heating and diagnostic neutral beam studies in operation at the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) at Consorzio RFX, Padova. SPIDER is the full-size ITER ion source prototype and the largest negative ion source in operation in the world. In view of...
Tokamak scenarios are governed by actuator actions that can be either pre-programmed in feedforward or requested by feedback controllers based on actual plasma state. Actions requested by feedback controller have the advantage that they can react on unpredictable events that happen in the system. On the other hand, the reaction comes always with a delay. For that reason, it is required to...
After the 2020 campaign, EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) facility carried out maintenance. EAST data acquisition system（EAST DAQ）, which is responsible for the unified diagnostic data acquisition and long-term data storage, also has been upgraded. This article will present an overview of the upgrade data acquisition system. About 20 diagnostic systems and some other...
The driving, implosion and combustion processes of laser fusion take place in a very short time and a very small space scale, resulting in transient extremely high temperature and high density plasma environment. Plasma diagnosis is an important means to observe the physical phenomena in laser fusion process and obtain the parameters of extreme physical states. The object of laser inertial...
Software integration of multiple data acquisition and timing hardware devices in Instrumentation and Control and diagnostics applications for fusion environments is very challenging. This is especially relevant for ITER, where the instrumentation is mostly composed of COTS hardware. While the implementation should manage multiple hardware devices from different manufacturers providing...
In recent years, a new tomographic inversion method, based on the Maximum Likelihood (ML) approach, has been adapted to JET bolometry. In addition to its accuracy and reliability, the key advantage of this approach consists of its ability to provide reliable estimates of the uncertainties in the reconstructions. The original algorithm has been implemented and validated using the MATLAB...
The operation of fusion devices produces huge amounts of data with high dimensionality that allows developing sophisticated machine learning models to tackle specific problems. In such high-dimensional data space, the feature selection plays an important role to extract useful information.
A high number of features in the data requires dimensionality-reduction techniques before the...
Control, Data Acquisition and Communication (CODAC) real-time software are essential for fusion device operation, machine protection and for the optimization of plasma experiments. In 2019, following the WEST project (W -for tungsten- Environment Steady-state Tokamak) upgrade, a major migration of the inter-process message transport infrastructure has been initiated.
Originally, on Tore...
An update is being conducted on the TCABR tokamak, which is a small tokamak (R0 = 0.62 m and a = 0.2 m) operated at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. This update mainly consists of the installation of (i) graphite tiles to fully cover the inner surface of the vacuum vessel wall, (ii) new poloidal field (PF) coils to allow the generation of various diversion configurations, such as single-...
With the development of EAST physics experiment, more and more diagnostic signals need to be acquired in real-time for advanced plasma control. Due to the distributed characteristics of diagnostic systems, different types of data acquisition device with suitable sampling rate need to be deployed nearby the diagnostic signals. In order to obtain these distributed signals effectively and...
The RedPitaya board represents an alternative to many expensive laboratory measurement and control systems. It hosts a Zynq system composed of an ARM processor deeply integrated into a configurable FPGA, two 125MHz RF inputs and outputs and 14-bit Analog to Digital and Digital to Analog converters.
Due to its flexibility, RedPitaya has been considered for a variety of advanced diagnostic...
In this paper, we propose recurrent transformer model, which is a method for forecasting the temperature of KSTAR PF coils, to protect PF coil while PF coil operation. In this work, we developed the transformer model that can recurrently forecast output using the current time input data and the hidden state of the previous time step.The amount of computation and memory overheads of running the...
In the LHD experiment, physical data is managed by the Kaiseki Server, or the Analyzed Data Server. In the past, the registration of physical data was done by each researcher in charge of measurement, but since many analysis programs require other physical data as input data, calculations could not be performed until the necessary data were registered. Therefore, the registration of the...
In order to generate high-performance plasma, it is desirable to keep high quality vacuum during experiment. Mass spectrometer is commonly used to monitor the vacuum quality and to record the amount of atoms and molecules in the vacuum vessel. Leak is the most serious accident to avoid and must be indicated by the recorded events such as an increase in the degree of vacuum and a change in the...
Data-driven models are aimed on finding complex relation among different quantities but without taking into account the physical mechanisms that are responsible for an underlying behaviour. From an engineering point of view, this is not an issue whenever the detection is correct. However, such models require large databases for training purposes. The requirement of a high number of...
