Implementation of a quasi-realtime display of DIII-D neutral beam heating waveforms

The DIII-D neutral beam system employs eight 80 keV ion sources mounted on four beamlines to provide plasma heating to the DIII-D tokamak. The neutral beam system is capable of injecting over 20 MW of deuterium power with flexibility in terms of timing and modulation of the individual neutral beams. To maintain DIII-D´s efficient tokamak shot cycle and make informed control decisions, it is important to be able to determine which beams fired, and exactly when, by the time the tokamak shot is over. Previously this information was available in centralized form only after a several minute wait. A cost-effective alternative to the traditional eight-channel storage oscilloscope has been implemented using off the shelf PC hardware and software. The system provides a real time display of injected neutral beam accelerator voltages and tokamak plasma current, as well as a summation waveform indicative of the total injected power act a function of time. The hardware consists of a Macintosh Centris 650 PC with a Motorola 68040 microprocessor running at 20 MHz. Data acquisition is accomplished using a National instrument´s 16-channel analog to digital conversion board for the Macintosh. The color displays and functionality were developed using National Instruments´ LabView environment. Because the price of PCs has been decreasing rapidly and their capabilities increasing, this system is far less expensive than an eight-channel storage oscilloscope. As a flexible combination of PC and software, the system also provides much more capability than a dedicated oscilloscope, acting as the neutral beam coordinator´s logbook, recording comments and availability statistics. Data such as shot number and neutral beam parameters are obtained over the local network from other computers end added to the display. Waveforms are easily archived to disk for future recall. Details of the implementation will be discussed along with samples of the displays and a description of the system´s function and capabilities