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Controlled nuclear fusion aims to obtain energy by particles collision confined inside a nuclear reactor (Tokamak). These ionized particles, heavier isotopes of hydrogen, are the main elements inside of plasma that is kept at high temperatures (millions of Celsius degrees). Due to high temperatures and magnetic confinement, plasma is exposed to several sources of instabilities which require a set of procedures by the control and data acquisition systems throughout fusion experiments processes. Control and data acquisition systems often used in nuclear fusion experiments are based on the Advanced Telecommunication Computer Architecture (AdvancedTCA®) standard introduced by the Peripheral Component Interconnect Industrial Manufacturers Group (PICMG®), to meet the demands of telecommunications that require large amount of data (TB) transportation at high transfer rates (Gb/s), to ensure high availability including features such as reliability, serviceability and redundancy. For efficient plasma control, systems are required to collect large amounts of data, process it, store for later analysis, make critical decisions in real time and provide status reports either from the experience itself or the electronic instrumentation involved. Moreover, systems should also ensure the correct handling of detected anomalies and identified faults, notify the system operator of occurred events, decisions taken to acknowledge and implemented changes. Therefore, for everything to work in compliance with specifications it is required that the instrumentation includes hardware management and monitoring mechanisms for both hardware and software. These mechanisms should check the system status by reading sensors, manage events, update inventory databases with hardware system components in use and maintenance, store collected information, update firmware and installed software modules, configure and handle alarms to detect possible system failures and prevent emergency scenarios occurrences. The goal is to ensure high availability of the system and provide safety operation, experiment security and data validation for the fusion experiment. This work aims to contribute to the joint effort of the IPFN control and data acquisition group to develop a hardware management and monitoring application for control and data acquisition instrumentation especially designed for large scale tokamaks like ITER.

The Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA ® ) specification implements important key features such as high reliability, high availability, redundancy and serviceability for control and data acquisition instrumentation fault condition, hardware malfunction, firmware updates and hardware reconfiguration. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and corresponding kernels already have built-in mechanisms and embedded software for Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) hot-plug support that allows automatic removal of PCIe device nodes and associated device files from the system providing a fast replacement strategy for damaged cards without requiring an entire system shutdown. This paper describes handling of PCIe hot-plug events at a software middle level using the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) standard interrupt mechanism. The handling tasks can be accomplished by AdvancedTCA ® cards chipsets with support for PCIe hot-plug features, Linux hot-plug embedded controller and Red Hat built-in device manager module. The goal is to implement a fast hardware replacement solution without system shutdown providing high availability capabilities to AdvancedTCA ® control and data acquisition instrumentation specially directed for large fusion experiments such as International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor (ITER). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents an Enhanced Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) device support module for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Fast Plant System Controller (FPSC) project based in Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) specification. The developed EPICS device support module provides an External System Manager (ESM) solution for monitoring and control the ITER FPSC ATCA shelf system and data acquisition boards in order to take proper action and report problems to a control room operator or high level management unit in case of any system failure occurrence. EPICS device support module acts as a Channel Access (CA) server to report problems and publish ATCA system data information to the control room operator, high level management unit or other CA network clients such as Control System Studio Operator Interfaces (CSS OPIs), Best Ever Alarm System Toolkit (BEAST), Best Ever Archive Utility (BEAUTY) or other CA client applications. EPICS device support module communicates with the ATCA Shelf manager (ShM) using HTTP protocol to send and receive commands through POST method in order to get and set system and shelf components properties such as fan speeds measurements, temperatures readings, module status and ATCA boards acquisition and configuration parameters. All system properties, states, commands and parameters are available through the EPICS device support module CA server in EPICS Process Variables (PV) and signals format. ATCA ShM receives the HTTP protocol messages from the EPICS device support module, validates and takes proper action in order to execute and acknowledge the required command operation and respond with an operation success or error return code. Each ATCA board contains inventory data that can be retrieved by the ShM controller to determine if there is enough power available for the payload process, provide manufacturer data information, retrieve board model and serial numbers and check number of available board sensors their types and fields. The ShM can provide this inventory data information to the EPICS device support module if is required. ShM module communicates with the ATCA boards through the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) controller via IPMI communication protocol on redundant IPMI bus. This communication protocol is managed by the embedded Intelligent Management Platform Controller (IPMC) in the ATCA board side and by the embedded Shelf Management Controller (ShMC) in the ShM side. Queried inventory data information becomes available in the EPICS device support module upon ShM command response. EPICS device support module can be a valuable and good approach for ATCA ESM aiming the integration in the ITER Control and Data Acquisition (CODAC) core system according the ITER specification. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]