CAMAC-based Data Acquisition System Research Articles

Updating legacy CAMAC-based data acquisition system for extended pulse duration of JT-60U

JT-60U's diagnostic systems have been using CAMAC systems for their control and data acquisition. But the transient recorders used to store the diagnostic data are rather old and lack in memory expansion. Therefore, for a long pulse discharge of more than 15 s, data sampling rate must be reduced to cover the whole discharge period. The acquired data has, however, low time resolution and is sometimes insufficient for detailed analysis. To solve this problem, the transient recorders should be replaced with those having larger memory, but without modification to the existing data processing infrastructure. For this purpose, we have developed a new data acquisition system with SPARC CPU on VMEbus and the associated software, to retain the functionality of CAMAC control. We have applied this system to the existing bolometric diagnostics. In this paper, detail of design will be described.

Alternate mode for data acquisition and real-time monitoring system based on CAMAC system

Long discharges (about 250 s) have been achieved on HT-7 tokamak experiments in the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP). And in the next generation tokamaks like ITER (I. Yonekawa, Data acquisition and management requirement for ITER, Fusion Eng. Des. 43 (1999) 321 [1]), KSTAR (G.S. Lee, J. Kim, S.M. Hwang, C.S. Chang, M.H. Cho, K. Kim, et al., The design of the KSTAR tokamak, Fusion Eng. Des. 46 (1999) 405 [2]) and EAST (J.R. Luo, L. Zhu, H.Z. Wang, Z.S. Ji, F. Wang, Y. Shu, Towards steady-state operational design for the data and PF control systems of the HT-7U, Nucl. Fusion 43 (9) (2003) 862[3]), the pulses will be about 1000 s. In such steady-state operation, we have to upgrade the CAMAC-based data acquisition system, with higher sampling rates and longer acquisition times. It is necessary to monitor the plasma parameters in real-time so that the operators can change the operational conditions during the discharge to maintain the plasma. A design of the system named alternant data acquisition and real-time monitoring system for steady-state tokamak operation based on CAMAC system has been setup in ASIPP. The application of this system has been demonstrated in the HT-7 and TRIAM-1M tokamaks during their 2004 experiment campaigns.

Calibration of a new chamber using GUPIX software package for PIXE analysis

A new chamber has been designed and constructed for the second beam line at the Lund Nuclear Microprobe facility, Sweden. The aim with the chamber is to perform standardized analyses with most of the nuclear analytical techniques (proton induced X-ray emission, particle elastic scattering analysis, proton induced gamma emission, nuclear reaction analysis, etc.) with a millimetre size beam. The beam line and chamber constructions are described in this paper. The possibility to run samples in batch, and the special arrangement developed for this is described. A mass calibration of the PIXE set-up has been done with MicroMatter thin film standards and other thick standards. The spectra were acquired with CAMAC based data acquisition system with Kmax interfacing software. The GUPIX software package recently installed in our laboratory has been used to process the PIXE spectra and the results are compared with the certified values. For standardization the instrumental constant H (solid angle and correction factor) is determined relying completely on the GUPIX data base (cross-sections, fluorescence and Coster–Kronig probabilities, stopping powers and attenuation coefficients) for a large set of elements. These H values are saved inside the GUPIX library, to be used in future analysis.

New CAMAC based data acquisition and beam control system for Lund nuclear microprobe

A new CAMAC based data acquisition system has been installed at the Lund Nuclear Microprobe facility. This paper reports on the development and present status of the data acquisition system. The system is a true multiparameter CAMAC based system with fast Fera bus readout and in crate memory buffer. The user interface is based on Sparrow Kmax software for a Power Macintosh platform. The system read out and tag the event data with position on-line, which make fast on-line monitoring of spectra or element maps possible.Simultaneously, all data can be saved event by event for off-line analysis. The beam scanning part is software controlled through a timed D/A converter, this allows fast scanning of the beam. With a CCD-camera and video card the area to be analysed could be defined directly from the image, and the sample position can be moved. Any kind of irregular scan patterns could be defined.

PHiDAS: A two dimensional Langmuir probe array and high capacity CAMAC based data acquisition system

An 8×8 array of Langmuir probes has been developed for measuring turbulent plasma parameters in tokamak edge plasmas. Fluctuations in plasma density ñ(r,θ,t) and floating potential φ̃f(r,θ,t) can be measured by the diagnostic, as well as the steady state (dc), profiles in n̄e(r,θ) and φ̄f(r,θ). The signal from each probe is processed by individual custom pre-amplifier circuits and the data from all probes are acquired simultaneously by a custom CAMAC based data acquisition system. This data acquisition system has 10 bit resolution with a maximum speed of 20 MS/s and has applications for various types of tokamak diagnostic arrays. Design considerations for the probe array and data acquisition system are discussed. Preliminary results from the probe array will be presented.

A CAMAC based data acquisition system for flat-panel image array readout

A readout system is developed to facilitate the digitization and subsequent display of image data from two-dimensional, pixellated, flat-panel, amorphous silicon imaging arrays. These arrays are designed specifically for medical X-ray imaging applications. The readout system is based on hardware and software developed for various experiments at CERN and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Additional analog signal processing and digital control electronics are constructed specifically for this application. The form of the resulting data acquisition system is reported, aspects of its performance are discussed, and the compromises which were involved in its design are considered.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

TRAMP, the next generation data acquisition system for RTP

The Rijnhuizen Tokamak Project (RTP) is a medium-sized tokamak experiment that requires a very reliable data-acquisition system due to its pulsed nature. Analyzing the limitations of an existing CAMAC-based data-acquisition system showed that a substantial increase of performance and flexibility could best be obtained by the construction of an entirely new system. This system, called TRAMP (transient recorder and Amoeba multiprocessor), is based on tailor-made transient recorders with a multiprocessor computer system in VME running Amoeba. The performance of TRAMP exceeds the performance of the CAMAC system by a factor of four. Plans to increase flexibility and performance are presented. >

VMSMULTI/DA: a single process CAMAC data acquisition system for VMS

A prepackaged, single-process, easy-to-use, general-purpose CAMAC-based data acquisition system, appropriate for small-scale nuclear physics experiments, is described. The package is simple enough that one individual can use it to perform both data acquisition and analysis on experiments of up to seven CAMAC crates. This package represents the latest generation of the MULTI family of data acquisition software and runs on VMS-based machines using the JORWAY 411 branch driver. Events are signaled using LAMs (look-at-me's) and logged to disk. Various aspects of the system are discussed, including architecture, the CAMAC interface, the data acquisition interface, logging and playback, and timing. >

Status of the cyric neutron TOF facilities upgrade

We describe progress in the Tohoku neutron time-of-flight (TOF) facilities improved to facilitate high resolution measurements for neutrons in the range 10 ≤ E n ≲ 60 MeV. Efforts have been concentrated on completing the neutron detection system consisting of twelve neutron detectors, in which 23 1 of NE213 liquid scintillator are encapsulated, and a CAMAC-based data acquisition system. A systematic study of the neutron detection efficiency has been performed by Monte Carlo calculation for monochromatic neutrons with E n ≲ 34 MeV. Results have been tested by counting neutrons from the 7Li(p, n) 7Be reaction and comparing the yield with the absolute neutron fluence determined by activation.