Overview of time synchronization system of steady state superconducting tokamak SST-1.

The Steady State Superconducting Tokamak (SST-1) consists of many distributed and heterogeneous plant/experiment systems viz. Water-Cooling, Power Supplies, Cryogenics, Vacuum, Magnets, Auxiliary-Heating sources, Diagnostics, Front End Electronics (FEE) & Data Acquisition systems, having their own data acquisition & control systems and control & monitor by Central Control System (CCS) during the machine operation. With distributed computing and interdependent systems, it is essential that all the data/event acquired must be with disciplined & precise time-base, so as to make the co-relation of the data/event from various plant and experiment systems easy. Hence it is important to have accurate and precise Time Synchronization in place. The two systems fulfill the requirement of the time synchronization in SST-1. The VME based Timing System (TS) provides synchronization amongst various experiment systems during the plasma discharges and works as discharge control system (DCS) while the GPS based Time Synchronization System (TSS) caters the requirement of synchronization during the continuous operation of various plant systems by feeding a central clock to all the plant systems. This paper presents the Time Synchronization System of SST-1, the results of the integrated testing and engineering validation with various SST-1 subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]