Design of the Magnum-PSI safety, control and data acquisition system

The FOM-Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen has started the construction of Magnum-PSI, a magnetized (3 T), steady-state, large area (80cm(2)) high-flux (up to 10(24) H(+)ions m(-2) s(-1)) plasma generator. The aim of this linear plasma device is to provide a controlled, highly accessible laboratory experiment facility in which the interaction of a magnetized plasma with different surfaces can be studied in detail. Magnum-PSI consists of several subsystems including vacuum, cooling, plasma source, target station, and a number of diagnostic systems. The safety, Control, Data Acquisition and Communication (CODAC) system integrates these subsystems and provides an interface for the Magnum-PSI users. The CODAC system is designed in parallel with the Magnum-PSI hardware to maximize compatibility and usability. The CODAC system must handle the step-by-step construction and expansion of the Magnum-PSI system without compromising human and system safety in each step, combine manual and remote control, and provide a central data storage and implement automated experiment execution. Key features of the CODAC system are a layered, modular and distributed design, the use of intelligent devices (e.g. commercial computer controlled cooling units), a centralized data storage built on HDF5, and a communication layer built on ZeroC (TM) Ice (TM). A significant part of the design is based on existing open source software components, integrated using C and Python code. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.