Advanced high-performance processing tools for diagnostics and control in fusion devices

Abstract

Abstract The ITER project demanding operating conditions, as well as other enabling experiments in relevant fusion projects, present new challenges to the diagnostics, control and instrumentation. The most critical requirements relate to the high acquisition rates (up to some gigasample per second), high physical event rate (up to several megaevents per second), need to handle enormous quantities of data in long experimental pulses (up to 30 minutes) and highly complex control and diagnostic algorithms. Radiation hardness of all equipment involved must also be taken into account for high magnetic fields as well as neutron irradiation in the fusion devices port cells. The implementation of state-of-the-art designs were tested both with in-house built prototypes and complete systems installed in the major international fusion experiments. The main technologies used include Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA), high speed electronic devices for signal digitization, complex real-time algorithms for physics analysis, control and data compression implemented in high-performance computing using field-programmable gate arrays and multicore processor architectures. The control and data acquisition group at Instituto de Plasmas e Fusao Nuclear (Instituto Superior Tecnico - Lisboa) has conducted several projects and studies for the development of reliable high-performance processing tools and instrumentation for the diagnostics and control of fusion devices capable of complying with the most demanding requirements.