Overview of the PBX-M plasma control system upgrade

The PBX-M group is developing a control system to integrate multiple independently-operating and mutually-interacting systems used for plasma control. Central to this effort has been the procurement of a SKYbolt 1 Shamrock AP computing platform as the Central Control Unit (CCU). The engineering and experimental effort for this program will occur in two phases. In Phase 1 of the program a minimum hardware configuration will be used to duplicate the functionality of the existing PBX-M plasma shape, current, and radial and vertical position control systems on the CCU. Phase 2 will expand the hardware configuration increasing the number of slow (10 kHz) A/D data acquisition channels and adding 32 fast (250 kHz) A/D channels. In this paper the authors will present an overview of the PBX-M plasma control system program. They will discuss the properties of the Phase 1 and 2 processes and how they influenced their choices for the system's hardware and will impact the software design. Also important are the increased general computing capabilities afforded by out choice of hardware and the impact it will have on their between shot analysis capabilities. They will also describe the Phase 1 control processes and present some details of their implementation