Advances in remote participation for fusion experiments

Magnetic fusion experiments keep growing in size and complexity resulting in a concurrent growth in collaborations between experimental sites and laboratories worldwide. In the US, fusion experimental research is centered on three large facilities involving over 1000 researchers covering 37 states. In the EU, fusion research is coordinated by EFDA, encompassing some 25 laboratories and several major facilities, including ASDEX Upgrade, JET and Tore Supra. Collaborative research within each group, combined with collaboration between the two groups is presenting new challenges in the field of remote participation technology. These challenges are being addressed by the creation and deployment of advanced collaborative software and hardware tools. The collaborative technology being deployed is scalable to fusion research beyond the present programs, in particular to the ITER experiment that will require extensive collaboration capability worldwide. This paper compares approaches, reviews the present state-of-the-art in remote participation capability and identifies areas of work required for the success of future large-scale experiments.