A remote control room at DIII-D

Abstract

This paper describes a remote control room built at DIII-D to support remote participation activities of DIII-D research staff. In order to create a persistent, efficient, and reliable remote participation environment for DIII-D scientists, a remote control room has been built in a 640-ft 2 dedicated area. The purpose of this room is to experiment and define a remote control room framework that can facilitate the remote participation needs of current and future fusion experiments such as ITER. A variety of hardware equipment has been installed and several remote participation and collaboration technologies have been deployed. Objectivity and practical consideration has been the key while designing the room and deploying the technologies. Although, the DIII-D remote control room is still a work in progress and new software tools are being implemented, it has been already useful for a number of international remote participation activities. For example, it has been used for remote support of the EAST Tokamak in China during the start up operation and proven effective for other collaborative experiment activities. The description of the remote control room design is given along with technologies deployed for remote collaboration needs. We will also discuss our recent experiences involving the DIII-D remote control room as well as future plans for improvements.