[en] A data acquisition and control system for the ETA-BETA experiment is presently under development at the C.G.I. of Padua. The system is based on a local minicomputer TI 960A linked via a telephone line to a host computer (IBM 370/158). The data collected during the experimentation are initially stored on a local disk unit and then transferred into large permanent files of the host computer. The experimentation requires a strict interaction between the operator and the computer. This interaction requires a sequence of operations which change according to the experiment requirements in an unpredictable manner. To avoid a continuous reprogramming of the operation sequence, to achieve a smooth and automated experimentation, a command interpreter which acts as an interface between the software modules performing different tasks and the operator has been implemented. The interpreter reacts to a command by activating a program which, under the operating system supervision, runs as an independent task or as a subroutine dynamically loaded in core. The operating power of the interpreter is enhanced by structure commands which perform looping and conditional branching as in a procedural programming language. The interpreter is open ended in the sense that new commands can be added during the operation and sequences of commands can be grouped in a procedure which can be executed by a single procedure call command. Nesting of structure commands and procedures is virtually unlimited

No abstract available

No abstract available

[en] A programme has begun on MAST to replace its ageing CAMAC and VME based data acquisition systems with new modern hardware which, together with several improvements in the supporting infrastructure, will provide support for faster data acquisition rates, longer-pulse operation, faster data access and higher reliability. The main principle of the upgrade was to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and well-established standards wherever possible. CompactPCI or PXI was chosen as the digitiser form factor to replace CAMAC/VME, and Ethernet would be used as the means to access all devices. The modular architecture of the MAST data acquisition software framework has helped to minimise the integration effort required to phase in new subsystems and/or new technologies whilst continuing to use the old hardware in other systems. The software framework was updated to allow more versatile use of the network-attached data acquisition devices. The new data acquisition devices had multiple connector types, which created difficulties with the cable interfacing. To resolve this and provide support for easy substitution, a standard connector interface was chosen, based on the most common connector type and pin-out already in use, and several cable assemblies were produced to connect the proprietary interface of the digitiser to the standard interface block. The in-house IDA-3 data storage format is unable to accommodate the larger file sizes and is increasingly difficult to maintain, so it is to be gradually phased out. The NetCDF-4/HDF5 data standard is being adopted as its replacement, thus reducing in-house maintenance whilst providing a data format that is more accessible to the Fusion community. Several other infrastructure upgrades were necessitated by the anticipated increase in data traffic and volume including the Central Timing System, the MAST Ethernet infrastructure and servers for front-end data processing, data storage and data access management. These improvements have provided higher reliability, faster data retrieval, greater longevity and capacity to extend the MAST pulse length to accommodate the future programme requirements.

[en] GAPHYOR (Gaz Physique Orsay) is a retrieval system of the single properties of atoms and molecules, of the interaction properties between these particles and the macroscopic properties of the corresponding gases. Qualities, difficulties and possible improvements are discussed

[en] MDSplus is a data acquisition system widely used in nuclear fusion experiments. It defines a file format for pulse files and provides a set of tools for data acquisition and management. The whole MDSplus package is used in several fusion experiments to set-up and supervise the data acquisition process. Other experiments use only the data management layer of MDSplus to provide a common format for data exchange between plasma fusion laboratories. HDF5 is a file format and a data access library used by a larger community, mainly outside fusion. HDF5 is used, for example, in earth science research, defense applications and weather services. HDF5 allows managing large and complex data sets and provides a common data format among heterogeneous applications. Both MDSplus and HDF5 support a rich set of data types and a hierarchical data organization, as well as multi-language data access libraries. There are however several significant differences between the two system architectures, making each system better suited in different application contexts. The paper provides a brief overview of the data architectures of MDSplus and HDF5 and analyzes more in detail the peculiar aspects of the two systems. It will be shown that the ranges of applications suitable for the two systems overlap only partially. Finally, some application scenarios will be presented, discussing to what extent each system can provide an optimal solution. This document is composed of an abstract and a poster. (author)

[en] A device for the acquisition of data on plasma electric parameters is described. The device has several channels each of them being equipped with a transducer, reselting integrator, modulator, transformer with a volumetrical coil demodulator and a compensation unit. To enhance its accuracy, the device is also provided with a delay line and frequency divider

[en] We developed a system for data acquisition and analysis, designed around VMEbus and UNIX workstations. The system is designed to be scalable: If we distribute it throughout the network, a thousand channels can be dealt with in the same way as a dozen channels. The issues of choosing and installing amplifiers are also discussed. (orig.)

No abstract available

[en] An unplementation of an architecture designed to lower the problems associated with finite data acquisition memories and relatively high undesired dead times, usually found in high energy experiments, is presented. The architecture allows up to four similar data acquisition channels, capable of acquiring continuously up to 3 Mbytes of data at a 250 MHz sampling rate, to be housed in a single width double height VME bus module. Provision is made to operate the channels in an interleaved way, achieving higher sampling rates. The module will be the basis of an upgrade of the dedicated data acquisition system for the reflectometry diagnostic on the Asdex-Upgrade tokamak