Upgrade of the Data Acquisition and Control System of Microwave Reflectometry on the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak

TL;DR

This paper describes the comprehensive upgrade of the data acquisition and control system for microwave reflectometry on EAST, enhancing measurement capabilities and real-time data processing for plasma density profiling.

Contribution

The paper introduces a PXIe-based DACS with high-speed digitizers, a custom waveform generator, and FPGA-based real-time neural network processing for improved plasma diagnostics.

Findings

Enhanced measurement range for plasma density and fluctuations.

High data throughput capacity of 3000 MB/S.

Implementation of real-time neural network processing for plasma profile calculation.

Abstract

The reflectometry on Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is undergoing an upgrade for more comprehensive measurement of plasma density profile and fluctuation. The Data Acquisition and Control System (DACS) has been redeveloped to satisfy the requirements of the upgraded reflectometry. The profile reflectometry works in 30-110 GHz (X-mode) and 40-90GHz (O-mode), when the fluctuation reflectometry operates at 20 fixed frequency points in 50-110GHz (X-mode) and 20-60GHz (O-mode). The PXIe-based DACS includes two 8-channel 14-bit 250MSPS digitizers and ten 8-channel 12-bit 60MSPS digitizers. A self-developed 5-channel 250MSPS arbiter waveform generator (AWG) is used to control voltage control oscillators for frequency sweeping. A trigger and clock manger and a timing module receive the trigger and clock signal from central controller and synchronize all the digitizers and the AWG. The total data rate from digitizers is 2515 MB/S. The Data from digitizers is streamed to a disk array (RAID 0) with data throughput capacity of 3000 MB/S. Meanwhile, selected data is transported to a FPGA based real-time data processing module, which utilize a pre-trained neural network to calculate the plasma density profile. Now the new reflectometry is being installed on EAST, and its performance will be tested in experimental campaign after 2018.