Cutting edge concepts for control and data acquisition for Wendelstein 7-X

Abstract

Wendelstein 7-X is intended to demonstrate steady state high performance plasma operation and to explore the physics basis of the Helias reactor concept. From there, the W7-X CoDaC concepts aim for steady state plasma stabilization at favorite operation points and largely or even fully documented plasma experiments for achieving efficiently scientific results. Several concepts are being employed that are not common to the fusion research so far. The plasma control system is based on segments consisting of control parameters and transition conditions to other segments. The data acquisition system aims at streaming all acquired data for archiving, control and monitoring purposes and tries to prevent early data reduction. This leads to data streaming rates of up to 30 GBytes/s during plasma operation of up to half an hour. The data analyses framework is intended to support largely automation with analyses chains based on service oriented architectures. A coupling to real time systems is envisaged later in the project for solving complex control problems. The envisaged model based data analyses rely on the existence of unanalyzed raw data in combination with a systematic documentation of the experimental setup, in particular for the diagnostics.