Modeling and design of an re-configurable isolated remote for plasma experiments with hard-real-time synchronization

The purpose of this paper is to present the design and implementation of a reconfigurable remote control for performing plasma experiments with Hard-Real-Time (HRT) synchronization under jitter less than 1 microsecond. An additional requirement for a multichannel synchronization system is the use of high-speed optical converters to provide galvanic isolation between powerful modules of the setup and remote control in order to exclude any possibility of disruption of the physical experiment control system. Modeling and development of the software part of the maser remote control panel was performed in the LabVIEW application development environment with Real Time and FPGA modules. The hardware part of the control panel is implemented on a real-time controller working in conjunction with the Xilinx FPGA module. To ensure the optical isolation of synchronization signals, boards of electron-optical converters based on LED lasers with fiber-optic terminals were developed and manufactured. The control program is implemented in a two-module architecture with a HOST application and an FPGA application that exchange data over a 1000BASE-T Ethernet network.