Software development for the PBX-M plasma control system

This paper describes the software development effort for the PBX-M plasma control system. The algorithms being developed for the system will serve to test advanced control concepts for TPX and ITER. This will include real-time algorithms for shaping control, vertical position control, current and density profile control and MHD avoidance. The control system consists of an interactive Host Processor (SPARC-10) interfaced through VME with four real-time Computer Processors (i860) which run at a maximum computational speed of 320 MFLOPs. Plasma shaping programs are being tested to duplicate the present PBX-M analog control system. Advanced algorithms for vertical control and x-point control will then be developed. Interactive graphical user interface programs running on the Host Processor will allow operators to control and monitor shot parameters. A waveform edit program will be used to download pre-programmed waveforms into the Compute Processor memory. Post-shot display programs will be used to interactively display data after the shot. Automatic pre-shot arming and data acquisition programs will run on the Host Processor. Event system programs will process interrupts and activate programs on the Host and Compute Processors. These programs are being written in C and Fortran and use system service routines to communicate with the Compute Processors and its memory. IDL and IDL widgets are being used to build the graphical user interfaces