Real-time diagnostic integration with the ASDEX upgrade control system

Operating in advanced plasma scenarios has become one of the major goals on the way towards ITER and a future fusion reactor. This implies the reinforced control of physics quantities like pressure profiles or magnetic island structures, which have to be reconstructed in real-time for this purpose. To achieve this goal the collaboration scheme between diagnostic data processing and real-time control has to be fundamentally changed from strict separation to open bidirectional information exchange in real-time. ASDEX Upgrade is currently designing and building a distributed computer cluster to implement such an integrated diagnostic and control system. The main topics comprise modular framework design. low-latency data communication via networks, and built-in synchronisation methods. We show how the discharge control system's modular framework is extended to publish calculated quantities via the network transparent to algorithm designers. A communication layer allows the exchange of real-time information between computation nodes with automatised routing even over several networks. Finally, in order to consistently combine data from independent sources, synchronisation methods are developed. Thus, sophisticated feedback control with time scales of milliseconds become feasible. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.