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

Highlights: • This paper describes the requirements and architecture of the control and data acquisition system of the ITER full-ion source experiment in the neutral beam test facility. • The system architecture integrates various popular software frameworks. • Slow control is based on the EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) framework. • Fast control is based on the MARTe (Multi-threaded Application Real-Time executor) framework. • Data acquisition is based on the MDSplus framework. - Abstract: 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.