Data Acquisition And Control System Research Articles

Development of a PXIe-based data acquisition and control system for hydrogen pellet injection system

A data acquisition and control (DAC) system has been developed for the solid hydrogen pellet injection system. This injector is a gas gun type injector, where solid hydrogen pellet ice is formed using a closed cycle cryocooler, and high-pressure helium gas or a pneumatic punch is used to dislodge the pellet. The DAC system is based on National Instrument's embedded controller NI PXIe-8133, along with associated I/O DAC cards and the LabVIEW application. A graphical user interface (GUI) developed using LabVIEW software allows users to remotely control the pellet formation and injection process. The data is stored locally on a desktop computer or in cloud storage for further analysis. The images of the injected pellet were obtained by using a Phantom V-1210 high-speed camera at 100-Killo FPS, which reveals the size and speed of the pellet. The developed DAC system provides the flexibility needed to operate the injector remotely during the plasma discharge in a tokamak environment. The injector setup system has been successfully tested in a test bench operation, and it will be integrated with the ADITYA-U tokamak.

Event driven high speed data acquisition with IEEE 1588 synchronization for long pulse operations of Indian Test Facility for ITER DNB

The Indian Test Facility (INTF) is a negative Hydrogen ion based 100 kV, 60A, 5 Hz modulated NBI system having duty cycle of 3 s ON time to 20 s OFF time. Prime objective of the facility is to characterize ITER Diagnostic Neutral Beam (DNB) with full specifications, prior to shipment and installation in ITER. In order to fully characterize ITER DNB, a matured Data Acquisition and Control system (DACS) is needed which will be responsible for supervisory control of the facility and for acquiring and monitoring signals at run time. Apart from conventional DACS, high speed data acquisition is needed for diagnostics and other signals with sampling rate requirements of 100 MS/s. For acquiring data from such systems it is imperative that the data be acquired only for certain duration on the occurrence of the event. Such acquisition systems are classified as event driven data acquisition system and are widely used in fusion engineering community.Development and implementation of high speed event driven data acquisition systems pose challenges in terms of data buffering, data streaming and synchronization. The precise timing of the event occurrence with respect to the main pulse should also be known for which a timing and synchronization system is needed. To fulfill this purpose, IEEE 1588 protocol offers a network based method of synchronizing multiple nodes based on Ethernet with sub microsecond accuracy. The present work describes the development of an event driven high speed data acquisition in synchronization with IEEE 1588 based timing network. The work proposes the time stamping of the event from synchronized network integrated with the event acquisition platform. The developed system has been tested for pulse durations longer than 3600 s. The performance of event data acquisition system has been thoroughly characterized and improved by applying various software optimizations in LabVIEW. The present work although intended to be used for INTF can be used for any such facility in fusion or other areas.The paper provides results of IEEE 1588 based timing network in various configurations and event data acquisition system developed on high speed FPGA controlled digitizer board with prototype results.

Progress in Data Transmission and Storage for Long Pulse Data Acquisition System

Since the study in the field of fusion has gradually developed toward the long-pulse experiment mode, long-pulse data has gradually become one of the main data types for pulsed experiments in the field of fusion. For long-pulse data, which is a kind of pulse-type data, it will be more difficult to transmit and store than short-pulse data because of its significant characteristics. In addition, in the design of data acquisition and control system (DACS) in fusion field, Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) has now gradually become the main framework of experimental control system to meet the diversity of devices and complexity of subsystems in large experimental system. However, due to the limitation of EPICS, its effectiveness in handling data transmission and storage under high speed data acquisition is not satisfactory. To solve the data transmission and storage under high-speed sampling, this paper proposes a data transmission and storage solution based on TCP/IP protocol and MDSplus database, which is designed with the concept of segmentation, i.e., data generated from experiments longer than 100 seconds are uploaded and stored in a segmented form. Currently, this system has been tested and applied, and the test result shows that the solution is feasible and the overall test system operates stably and reliably.

The redesign and implementation of data acquisition and control system for EAST NBI

The current data acquisition and control system (DACS) has been redesigned and upgraded according to the perspective of the ITER control data access and communication (CODAC) system to meet the requirements of further experiments and solve the underlying problems of the previous system. To maximize the load balancing of the system, the hot standby dual computer has been employed in the server control system (SCS) to accomplish computational tasks, complete data processing and storage and ensure steady operation of the system. Besides, the network control platform (NCP) will be built on the SCS to provide remote services, making system management more convenient. The new architecture not only corrects the defects of the existing system but also further explores the architecture design of the server cluster for processing the scientific experimental data.

Introduction of ITER CODAC relevant technologies on JET and MAST

Abstract The JET control and data acquisition system (CODAS) is an integrated system that provides all the pulse based and continuous data acquisition, real time and slow control and control room interfaces for JET. It has a long history, dating back to the beginning of JET in 1980. It utilises both commercially available hardware along with many in-house modules. The software has grown up and evolved largely independently of other developments in big science. Similarly, the data acquisition system on MAST has a long history of evolution from previous facilities at Culham (COMPASS). It utilises commercially available and in-house hardware (some shared with JET CODAS) and software that has developed largely independently of JET and other external developments. More recently, we have begun to adopt some ITER CODAC relevant technologies on both JET and MAST, in part, to also introduce some standardisation between the two facilities. This started with a pilot project to create a cubicle and environment monitoring system using commercial hardware and EPICS monitoring and HMI. We have since gone on to implement several camera and spectrometer filter controllers, several types of turbomolecular pump controller, and various radiation protection monitors in EPICS on JET. We are also implementing a central information display system for MAST that links the OPC interface on the machine control through to several display screens showing the machine state using EPICS. We have several MARTe based real time applications on JET and are now developing an application to provide real time processing of high-resolution Thomson scattering data using MARTe V2 (an ITER/F4E initiative to improve the robustness of this real-time framework). We are also considering upgrading the existing MARTe applications to this version. On JET we have also started to use another ITER CODAC technology – SDN to supplement the ATM based real time control network on JET. Initially, as a proof of principle, a real time plasma profile display was implemented. This system is now being extended to include several real time data sources which will feed their data back into the ATM network and on to the real time controllers. Looking forward, we anticipate extending the JET real time network with a purely ITER CODAC/SDN connected real time control system and provide a richer ITER CODAC interface to the JET CODAS to accommodate the possibility of ITER diagnostics testing and provide a real stress test for ITER archiving technologies.

Arduino Based Smart Load control

Power Failure in the power system is mainly due to the overloading. The possible damage to the area is losing a power. The Arduino Uno based load control system is a device which automatically control overload on generator by controlling power and cut-off supply whenever consumers exceeds the amount of power supplied for peak period. This is achieved by Arduino Uno, which detect overload and simultaneously cut-off the supply for the period of generator overloading. In this paper system can be automated into two stages are monitoring function and controlling function. In Monitoring function it has to record the meter reading at different location in the system, for normal as well as overload condition which is required for system planning. Distribution Supervisory control and Data Acquisition System (DSCADA) performs some of these monitoring function and controlling function about switching operation that is controlling of relay circuit breaker. The function Impacts on Consumer as well as reliability. The research work to be aimed at developing local full scale distribution automation system which can be control from secondary distribution substation to the consumer end. Power distribution automation expected for the broad areas. The project aimed at uninterrupted power supply for loyal energy consumer by implementation of this the problem of interruption off power supply due to energy misusing consumer can be avoided. This system provides the reliable operation at consumer end.

ReDICS: 5 years’ operation experiences and its technology

PUSPATI TRIGA Reactor (RTP) is the one and only 1MW research reactor in Malaysia that has been operating since 1982. RTP is used for radioisotope production, various R&D activities and operator training. After more than 3 decades of operations with an analog system, the control console is upgraded into a digital system. Reactor Digital Instrumentation and Control System (ReDICS) is designed, fabricated, manufactured, installed, tested and eventually commissioned in 2014. ReDICS mainly consists of Reactor Protection System (RPS), Operator Work Station (OWS), Data Acquisition and Control System (DACS) and Control Rod Drive Mechanism (CRDM). This paper shares the experiences and performance status throughout the 5 years of ReDICS operation after its commissioning. Besides, technical and operational data of ReDICS are presented and then compared with the old analog I&C system. This paper also describes the instrumentation and measurement technologies in ReDICS as well as the work performed to ensure ReDICS is always functioning at its best and safely.

Upgrade of the Data Acquisition and Control System of Microwave Reflectometry on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak

The reflectometry on Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is undergoing an upgrade for more comprehensive measurement of plasma density profile and fluctuation. The Data Acquisition and Control System (DACS) has been redeveloped to satisfy the requirements of the upgraded reflectometry. The profile reflectometry works in 30-110 GHz (X-mode) and 40-90GHz (O-mode), when the fluctuation reflectometry operates at 20 fixed frequency points in 50-110GHz (X-mode) and 20-60GHz (O-mode). The PXIe-based DACS includes two 8-channel 14-bit 250MSPS digitizers and ten 8-channel 12-bit 60MSPS digitizers. A self-developed 5-channel 250MSPS arbiter waveform generator (AWG) is used to control voltage control oscillators for frequency sweeping. A trigger and clock manger and a timing module receive the trigger and clock signal from central controller and synchronize all the digitizers and the AWG. The total data rate from digitizers is 2515 MB/S. The Data from digitizers is streamed to a disk array (RAID 0) with data throughput capacity of 3000 MB/S. Meanwhile, selected data is transported to a FPGA based real-time data processing module, which utilize a pre-trained neural network to calculate the plasma density profile. Now the new reflectometry is being installed on EAST, and its performance will be tested in experimental campaign after 2018.

The timing system of the ITER full size neutral beam injector prototype

The ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) is currently under construction at Consorzio RFX, Padova, Italy. The NBTF includes two experimental devices: SPIDER for the study of the ion source and MITICA for the development of the full-size HNB prototype. Even if the two experiments share many architectural aspects in their Control and Data Acquisition System (CODAS), there are nevertheless some significant differences because MITICA must adhere to ITER’s directives for plant control design. This paper describes the architecture of the MITICA timing system that represents one of the first examples of integration of IEEE1588 timing functions in fusion research medium-scale experiments.

DEVELOPMENT OF DATA ACQUISITION AND CONTROL SYSTEM USING EMBEDDED IOT

Designing an embedded web server is a difficult task in many real time data acquiring and control system applications. World wide web is a computer network system which is interconnected to global system utilizing the TCP/IP standard internet protocol to help billion of users around worldwide and also empowers the users to interface many real time embedded applications like acquiring the data for both commercial and industrial automations, home applications, safety measures etc,. In this paper we discuss about the development of DACS (Data acquisition and control system) using ARM9 embedded based web server. The DACS web server increases the speed of the processor of a system and avoids the problems in poor real time reliability by utilizing ARM9 processor and RT Linux. It has certain limitations for networking, artificial intelligence and digital distributed control system. Web pages are designed using HTML software and web server is designed using embedded ‘C’ language which is ported into ARM processor. Embedded web server, TCP/IP internet protocol, RTOS Linux, Embedded IoT

Implementation of an Advanced Control and Data Acquisition System for the 100 T Pulsed Magnet at WHMFC

The 100 T pulsed magnetic field project is under development at the Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center, Wuhan, China. Using the NI CompactRIO hardware and LabVIEW software platforms, a control and data acquisition system (CADAS) for the 100 T pulsed high magnetic field facility is designed and implemented. This paper briefly introduces the design of the control system and presents the aspects of the implementation. The CADAS developed in this paper communicates with three types of power supply systems and controls their discharge coordinately, and records discharge waveforms. It has been put into test, and 67.6 T pulsed magnetic field has been generated by a test three-coil magnet.

Taking advantage of the intercommunication features of IPMCs in ATCA CDAQ systems

The PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) 3.x AdvancedTCA Base Specification and Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) standards specify a modular system for Control and Data Acquisition (CDAQ) where the boards can communicate through the Intelligent Platform Management Bus-0 (IPMB-0).CDAQ systems applied to large physics experiments like ITER, are designed, among other features, for High-Availability (HA). A CDAQ system based on the PICMG 3.x AdvancedTCA Base Specification and IPMI standards grants these features. One of the key functions of the HA is the hot swapping possibility of the CDAQ system elements which is granted by those standards. An Advanced Telecommunications Computers Architecture (ATCA) CDAQ system can be designed implementing the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) standard communication protocol in their fabric lines. Despite the fact that this protocol has its own rules for hot swapping, defined as hot-plug, ATCA and PCIe standards are not entirely compatible in what concerns this aspect.Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear (IPFN) has developed and implemented a CDAQ system using the ATCA and PCIe standards.This paper describes the software architecture and functions implemented in the microcontroller of the Intelligent Platform Management Controller (IPMC) of the ATCA boards in order to render those standards compatible in what concerns hot-swap and hot-plug processes as an example of the possibilities that can be achieved taking advantage of the intercommunication features of IPMCs through the Intelligent Platform Management Bus-0 (IPMB-0).

A portable control and data acquisition solution using EPICS, MARTe and MDSplus

A modern Control and Data Acquisition System (CODAS) must provide an integrated management of supervision, data acquisition and real-time control and a data centric view of the system combining raw, elaborated and configuration data. These requirements have been addressed by the CODAS system of the SPIDER experiment in the ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility. The solution adopted in SPIDER CODAS integrates, by means of few interface components, three frameworks used in nuclear fusion and accelerator communities. A further refinement has recently started, aiming at providing a solution that is complete and generic, and, as such, easily portable to new applications, ranging from small systems to future fusion experiments. The refined system described in the paper will be deployed in the ECT-FALCON Test Facility, used to test the ITER EC launcher components and the European Gyrotron prototype. Its implementation in other test facilities is foreseen, in order to provide a fast track to the development of complete and integrated control and data acquisition.

SPIDER CODAS Evolution Toward the ITER Compliant Neutral Beam Injector CODAS

The ITER neutral beam test facility, currently under the construction at Padua, Italy, consists of two experiments: source for production of ions of deuterium extracted (SPIDER) to test the ITER size ion source and megavolt iter injector and concept advancement (MITICA) to test the full ITER neutral beam injector. While the former represents an intermediate step, also finalized to the ITER Diagnostic Neutral Beam, the latter will represent the final design and implementation of the full prototype of the ITER heating neutral beam (HNB) injectors. Consequently, for the control and data acquisition system (CODAS) of SPIDER, there are no requirements for compliance with ITER, whereas the MITICA HNB Plant System will comply with the ITER directives for plant instrumentation and control because final system will be eventually integrated in ITER. SPIDER CODAS is currently under commissioning and the integration of the different frameworks that operate in an integrated way is proven to be successful. The experience and solutions gained in SPIDER CODAS development will be reused as far as possible in MITICA and to provide at the same time the required ITER plant system compatibility, a set of ITER-like layers (networks) will be defined, using exactly the same protocol defined for ITER interfaces.

Data acquisition and control system for the ECE imaging diagnostic on the EAST tokamak

A 384-channel electron cyclotron emission imaging (ECEI) system is installed on the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST) and 7-gigabyte data is produced for each regular discharge of a 10-second pulse. The data acquisition and control (DAC) system for the EAST ECEI diagnostics covers the large data production and embeds the ability to report the data quality instantly after the discharge. The symmetric routing design of the timing signal distributions among the 384 channels provides a low-cost solution to the synchronization of a large number of channels. The application of the load-balance bond service largely reduces the configuration difficulty and the cost in the high-speed data transferring tasks. Benefiting from the various kinds of hardware units with dedicated functionalities, an automated and user interactive DAC work flow is achieved, including the pre-selections of the automation scheme and the observation region, 384-channel data acquisition and local caching, post-discharge imaging data quality evaluation, remote system status monitoring, and inter-discharge imaging system event handling. The system configuration in a specific physics experiment is further optimized through the associated operating software which is enhanced by the input of the tokamak operation status and the region of interest (ROI) from other diagnostics. The DAC system is based on a modularized design and scalable to the long-pulse discharges in the EAST tokamak.

PXIe based data acquisition and control system for ECRH systems on SST-1 and Aditya tokamak

In Steady State Superconducting (SST-1) tokamak, various RF heating sub-systems are used for plasma heating experiments. In SST-1, Two Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) systems have been installed for pre-ionization, heating and current drive experiments. The 42GHz gyrotron based ECRH system is installed and in operation with SST-1 plasma experiments. The 82.6GHz gyrotron delivers 200kW CW power (1000s) while the 42GHz gyrotron delivers 500kW power for 500ms duration. Each gyrotron system consists of various auxiliary power supplies, the crowbar unit and the water cooling system. The PXIe (PCI bus extension for Instrumentation Express)bus based DAC (Data Acquisition and Control) system has been designed, developed and under implementation for safe and reliable operation of the gyrotron. The Control and Monitoring Software applications have been developed using NI LabView 2014 software with real time support on windows platform.

Integrating supervision, control and data acquisition—The ITER Neutral Beam Test Facility experience

The ITER Neutral Beam (NBI) Test Facility, under construction in Padova, Italy consists in the ITER full scale ion source for the heating neutral beam injector, referred to as SPIDER, and the full size prototype injector, referred to as MITICA. The Control and Data Acquisition System (CODAS) for SPIDER has been developed and is going to be in operation in 2016. The system is composed of four main components: Supervision, Slow Control, Fast Control and Data Acquisition. These components interact with each other to carry out the system operation and, since they represent a common pattern in fusion experiments, software frameworks have been used for each (set of) component. In order to reuse as far as possible the architecture developed for SPIDER, it is important to clearly define the boundaries and the interfaces among the system components so that the implementation of any component can be replaced without affecting the overall architecture. This work reports the experience gained in the development of SPIDER components, highlighting the importance in the definition of generic interfaces among component, showing how the specific solutions have been adapted to such interfaces and suggesting possible approaches for the development of other ITER subsystems.

Preliminary design of safety and interlock system for indian test facility of diagnostic neutral beam

Indian Test Facility (INTF) is being built in Institute For Plasma Research to characterize Diagnostic Neutral Beam in co-operation with ITER Organization. INTF is a complex system which consists of several plant systems like beam source, gas feed, vacuum, cryogenics, high voltage power supplies, high power RF generators, mechanical systems and diagnostics systems. Out of these, several INTF components are ITER deliverable, that is, beam source, beam line components and power supplies. To ensure successful operation of INTF involving integrated operation of all the constituent plant systems a matured Data Acquisition and Control System (DACS) is required. The INTF DACS is based on CODAC platform following on PCDH (Plant Control Design Handbook) guidelines.The experimental phases involve application of HV power supplies (100KV) and High RF power (∼800KW) which will produce energetic beam of maximum power 6MW within the facility for longer durations. Hence the entire facility will be exposed tohigh heat fluxes and RF radiations.To ensure investment protection and to provide occupational safety for working personnel a matured Safety and Interlock system is required for INTF. The Safety and Interlock systems are high-reliability I&C systems devoted completely to the specific functions. These systems will be separate from the conventional DACS of INTF which will handle the conventional control and acquisition functions. Both, the Safety and Interlock systems are based on IEC 61511 and IEC 61508 standards as prescribed by the ITER PCDH guidelines.

Design and performance evaluation of the upgraded portable monitoring unit for air quality in animal housing

The Portable Monitoring Unit (PMU) was originally developed and used for measuring ammonia (NH3) and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and emissions from poultry facilities. Its use entailed a substantial degree of manual setup and data processing, making field deployment of multiple PMUs a logistical challenge. The original commercial electro-chemical (EC) sensor for NH3 is no longer available. Thus, an effort to upgrade the PMU design was undertaken. A substantial redesign of the PMU system is reported in this paper, including the data acquisition and control system (DACS), and the circuit and tubing systems. A new NH3 EC sensor was selected by an evaluation of existing commercial sensors, followed by further tests to characterize its accuracy and limitations. The performance of the upgraded PMU (iPMU) was evaluated from field measurements taken in a commercial laying hen barn and subsequent laboratory reassessment. Results demonstrated the feasibility of iPMU, making multiple-point measurements for air quality in large-scale barns practical.

Control and data acquisition of the ITER full-scale ion source for the neutral beam test facility

The neutral beam test facility, which is under construction in Padova, Italy, is developing the ITER full-scale ion source for the ITER heating neutral beam injectors, referred to as the SPIDER experiment, and the full-size prototype injector, referred to as MITICA. The SPIDER control and data acquisition system (CODAS) has been developed and its construction will start in 2014.Slow control and data acquisition will be based on the ITER CODAC core system software suite that has been designed to facilitate the integration of ITER plant systems with CODAC. Fast control and data acquisition will use solutions specific to the test facility, as the corresponding concepts are not ready-to-use in the ITER design.The ITER hardware catalog for fast control has been taken into consideration. The software development will be based on the integration of MDSplus and MARTe, two framework software packages that are well known in the fusion community, targeting data organization and fast real-time control, respectively.The paper revises the system requirements and the system design and shows the results already achieved in terms of system integration. In addition, the paper will report the experience in the usage of different cooperating software frameworks and in the integration of industrial procured plant systems.