Data Acquisition and Control System of the Varennes Tokamak

Abstract

The operation of the Varennes Tokamak requires two different environments for interfacing the machine to its operators. The first one is related to the control of the machine itself, while the second one concerns the diagnostic experiments which are directly connected to the machine. The configuration of the computer system used on the Varennes Tokamak reflects this duality and is composed of two subsystems: the control subsystem and the data acquisition subsystem. This paper reviews the basic requirements for data acquisition and control on the Varennes Tokamak. It then presents the hardware configuration of the system and describes the software systems developed to support the experiment. Finally, some comments on further developments are presented.