Data acquisition system implemented with various platforms for KSTAR diagnostic systems

Abstract

For the 1st plasma operation of the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) in 2008, 11 diagnostic systems had been developed such as five types of magnetic diagnostics, millimeter-wave interferometer, ECE radiometer, visible survey spectrometer, H_alpha monitor, filter scope and visible/H-alpha TVs to measure basic physics data; plasma current, electron density, temperature, plasma image, impurity, and so on. Data acquisition (DAQ) systems for those diagnostics performed signal conditioning, conversion from analog signal to digital signal with specific bit resolution, and data transmission in synchronized manner. A feature of the KSTAR diagnostic DAQ systems is that the systems have been implemented with various platforms for maximum hardware efficiency, future extendibility and adaptability to diagnostic systems. Another feature is that all diagnostic DAQ systems have been integrated into KSTAR central control system with EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) to configure and monitor them. In addition, all diagnostic DAQ systems operate in a synchronized manner by using local timing units (LTU) which are connected to a central timing unit (CTU) in the KSTAR time & synchronization system (TSS) via a dedicated timing network. Finally, diagnostic data generated during a shot are transferred to a centralized storage system using MDSplus (Model Driven System plus) which is an open source tool to be used widely in fusion environment. This paper will present the implementation of heterogeneous KSTAR diagnostic DAQ systems and their operation results.