Search

In the past few years a ten channel video diagnostics system was developed, built and installed for Wendestein 7-X stellarator (W7-X). The system is based on EDICAM (Event Detection and Intelligent Camera) CMOS cameras (400 fps @ 1.3 Mpixel). In the first W7-X experimental campaign (OP1.1) the video diagnostic system was not integrated into the central control and data acquisition system of W7-X, therefore the development of a user friendly interface was necessary to fulfill the following complex requirements: manage the configuration of all cameras (each with four independent region of interests), the measurement cycle and the real-time storage of the collected data to SSDs, and it has to provide a live video stream of all the ten cameras in the control room. The full bandwidth movie stream yields a data rate of approximately 1GB/s for a single camera, therefore downsampled data was used for the live view. The software also has to cope with the huge amount of data when W7-X will operate for up-to 30 min. The software package is organized into two stand-alone pieces: VIDACS (Video Diagnostics Data Acquisition and Control Software) being the user interface and EDIDAQ (EDICAM Data Acquisition Software) controlling the individual EDICAMs. This paper will present the detailed design, implementation, testing and the first operation experiences of this software package. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An innovative fast camera (EDICAM – Event Detection Intelligent CAMera) was developed by MTA Wigner RCP in the last few years. This new concept was designed for intelligent event driven processing to be able to detect predefined events and track objects in the plasma. The camera provides a moderate frame rate of 400 Hz at full frame resolution (1280 × 1024), and readout of smaller region of interests can be done in the 1–140 kHz range even during exposure of the full image. One of the most important advantages of this hardware is a 10 Gbit/s optical link which ensures very fast communication and data transfer between the PC and the camera, enabling two level of processing: primitive algorithms in the camera hardware and high-level processing in the PC. This camera hardware has successfully proven to be able to monitoring the plasma in several fusion devices for example at ASDEX Upgrade, KSTAR and COMPASS with the first version of firmware. A new firmware and software package is under development. It allows to detect predefined events in real time and therefore the camera is capable to change its own operation or to give warnings e.g. to the safety system of the experiment. The EDICAM system can handle a huge amount of data (up to TBs) with high data rate (950 MB/s) and will be used as the central element of the 10 camera overview video diagnostic system of Wendenstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator. This paper presents key elements of the newly developed built-in intelligence stressing the revolutionary new features and the results of the test of the different software elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]