MAST real-time display

MAST real-time display

MAST real-time display 150 150 UKAEA Opendata

MAST real-time display

The collection and processing of mainstream data on Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) [1] currently takes 3-6 minutes which is a considerable part of the inter-shot interval. The physicists and engineers performing experiments needed a tool for viewing the key operational data and plasma parameters immediately after the shot. In view of the future MAST upgrade and longer shots we decided to implement this tool straight as a real-time one. The displaying of data in real-time eliminates any problems with future extensions and makes possible to implement other useful functions. Another similar problem is to present the same data to the MAST team outside the control room, and to remote participants. That could be realised as a dynamic web page. And a natural way is to solve both problems in one system. There were two combined tasks – to collect signals from several remote sources and visually present them in the MAST control room in real-time and on a web page which should be updated immediately after the shot. Most of the signals collected need simple data processing before displaying, such as zero level subtraction and/or multiplication by some scaling factor. The set of signals to be displayed together with their scaling and position on screen can vary in different experiments. That requires a user-friendly graphical interface providing full configuration without any programming. A natural requirement is to implement the real-time display as simply as possible, with minimum use of new hardware and minimum software development.

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