Design and Implementation of Digital Control System Based on PAC Architecture for Large-Capacity Pulse Power Supply

Abstract

In Tokamak device, many larger capacity pulsed power supplies have been installed to provide high-energy magnetic field to control plasma. In this article, a new digital control system for satisfying larger capacity pulse power supply is introduced. This control scheme uses programmable automation controller (PAC) architecture, which consists of software platform and hardware platform to design a new digital control system, and in this system, real-time operation system (OS) and real-time communication network can provide much more precise and predictable timing characteristics to fulfill the requirements of the real-time control for pulse power supply in Tokamak device. Its hardware architecture based on integration and modularization can provide reliability, stability, and flexibility for digital control application; meanwhile, its software platform is used to handle data communication, close-looping control, protection strategy execution, and trigger output. After the digital control system of the large-capacity pulse power supply is built, its performance is verified through the HL-2A experiments. The result shows that the digital control system achieves the design goals and has high reliability and stability.