Status of the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System at NSTX
Authors: P. Sichta and J. Dong
Date of PPPL Report: January 2002
Presented at: the IEEE/NPSS Symposium on Fusion Engineering in Atlantic City, NJ, January 21-25, 2002.
The NSTX achieved first plasma in 1999. The Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) is used to provide data-integration services for monitoring and control of all NSTX engineering subsystems. EPICS is a set of software initially developed at U.S. DOE laboratories. It is currently used and maintained through a global collaboration of hundreds of scientists and engineers. This paper will relate some of our experiences using and supporting the EPICS software. Topics include reliability and maintainability, lessons learned, recently added engineering subsystems, new EPICS software tools, and a review of our first EPICS software upgrade. Steps to modernize the technical infrastructure of EPICS to ensure effective support for NSTX will also be described.