Distributed editing of experiment programs at Wendelstein 7-X

Abstract

Configuring experiment programs at complex fusion experimental facilities such as Wendelstein 7-X is a challenge: the amount of parameters, the growing number of components, the required specialized knowledge of technical systems and diagnostics, the complex timing – all this demands an integrated solution for experiment leaders, engineers, and physicists.With the growing number of integrated components, the W7-X experiment program editor Xedit was extended to cope with TaskLinks: allowing externally configured program parts of individual components to be linked into the planned sequence of the central experiment program. The preparation of the specific Tasks is done by the component owners using a local Xedit instance – in the same way, as the users are already familiar with from the creation of local programs for commissioning or calibration runs. Centrally, as with all integrated components, the linked components’ Tasks are then visualized and all parameters are checked for limit violations or other pre-defined rules before saving the complete planned program ready for execution.