Remote experimental environment: building a collaboratory for fusion research

ollaboration is increasing in importance as physics research continues to focus on fewer, larger, and more expensive projects. Experiments in the U.S. research program on magnetic-fusion energy are currently operated as national projects using teams of scientists from many institutions, most with international representation. A next-generation experiment is being designed as an international effort and will be operated with worldwide involvement. Future facilities will support continuous operation for which interactive, real-time experimentation becomes an important issue. To minimize the need for relocation and travel by researchers and their families and to sustain scientists' continued active involvement from their home institutions, we have been exploring techniques for interactive remote participation in experiments. High-performance wide-area networks and powerful workstations are helping us to create a distributed computing and information environment. In our approach, process-to-process communications over high-speed wide-area networks provide real-time synchronization and exchange of data among multiple computer networks. Considerable additional information associated with a control-room environment is also made available to the off-site collaborators, so that they can be integrated into experimental operations. Shared audio and visual environments help to nurture close personal interaction among researchers at multiple sites. This sort of organization of a research project is often referred to as a " collab-oratory. " 3