Target Diagnostic Instrument-Based Controls Framework for the National Ignition Facility

NIF target diagnostics are being developed to observe and measure the extreme physics of targets irradiated by the 192-beam laser. The response time of target materials can be on the order of 100ps--the time it takes light to travel 3 cm--temperatures more than 100 times hotter than the surface of the sun, and pressures that exceed 109 atmospheres. Optical and x-ray diagnostics were developed and fielded to observe and record the results of the first 4-beam experiments at NIF. Hard and soft x-ray spectra were measured, and time-integrated and gated x-ray images of hydrodynamics experiments were recorded. Optical diagnostics recorded backscatter from the target, and VISAR laser velocimetry measurements were taken of laser-shocked target surfaces. Additional diagnostics are being developed and commissioned to observe and diagnose ignition implosions, including various neutron and activation diagnostics. NIF's diagnostics are being developed at LLNL and with collaborators at other sites. To accommodate the growing number of target diagnostics, an Instrument-Based Controls hardware-software framework has been developed to facilitate development and ease integration into the NIF Integrated Computer Control System (ICCS). Individual WindowsXP PC controllers for each digitizer, power supply and camera (i.e., instruments) execute controls software unique to each instrument model. Each hardware-software controller manages a single instrument, in contrast to the complexity of combining all the controls software needed for a diagnostic into a single controller. Because of this simplification, controllers can be more easily tested on the actual hardware, evaluating all normal and off-normal conditions. Each target diagnostic is then supported by a number of instruments, each with its own hardware-software instrument-based controller. Advantages of the instrument-based control architecture and framework include reusability, testability, and improved reliability of the deployed hardware and software. Since the same instruments are commonly used on many different diagnostics, the controllers are reusable by replicating the hardware and software as a unit and reconfiguring the controller using configuration files for the specific diagnostic. Diagnostics are fully integrated and interoperable with ICCS supervisory and shot controls using these configuration files to drive the diagnostics' instrument-based controllers