Upgrade of EAST plasma control system for steady-state advanced operation

Abstract The EAST plasma control system (PCS) undergoes continuous development and upgrade to achieve major goals of EAST steady-state advanced operation. According to the development of computer multi-core processor technology, the four nodes PCS cluster was simplified to one host and one real time computing node structure. Besides, the cluster internal data exchange network Myrinet was replaced by high speed 10 Giga-bit Ethernet for inter machine and shared memory technology for multi-core communication. Such new upgraded system is called standalone PCS which has less hardware but be more efficient and easy to backup. In the new upgraded system, a real time archiving mode using data segment technology of MDSplus was realized which provided the possibility to save all data in segments without increasing the computer memory or reducing the saving frequency in steady–state operation. To reduce the heat flux and surface temperature on the divertor targets, plasma radiation control using divertor inert gas puffing and mid-plane supersonic molecular beam injection (SMBI) was integrated in PCS. In this paper, the control design and experiment results are discussed.