Development of a prototype work-cell for validation of ITER remote handling control system standards

Abstract

An integrated control system architecture has been defined for the implementation of ITER Remote Handling (RH) equipment systems. The RH Core System (RHCS) is a standard software platform used for the development of ITER RH equipment controller applications to facilitate integration the overall control system. The RH core system is packaged using several open source tools and libraries including OROCOS, KDL, GSL, Eigen, Eclipse, maven, etc. It emphasizes the usage of OROCOS real-time tool chains in building individual control system components that are highly configurable and interactive. The communication between the control room and the embedded control applications is achieved using a standard Controller Interface Protocol defined by ITER. Prototyping work has been carried out for the development of individual sub-systems including RH equipment controller, viewing system, virtual reality monitoring system and RH plant controller built on the RH core system using the standard network communication protocols of ITER. All the individual sub-systems have been integrated into a prototype work cell and successfully tested on a COTS robot manipulator. This paper presents the design & implementation of the prototype work-cell and concludes by suggesting recommendations for the next version of the ITER RH core system.