Operation Results of KSTAR Integrated Control System for First Plasma

After the successful accomplishment of vacuum commissioning assisted by vacuum vessel baking and glow discharge cleaning, KSTAR had shifted to the cool-down phase in April 2, 2008 and completed cooling of all superconducting coils and structures down to the operation temperature of 4.5K for about a month by the helium refrigerator system with 9KW cooling capacity. For the next a month, all superconducting coils were tested individually and conjunctively to investigate the controllability of coil current and field configuration for plasma discharge. Finally, we achieved the plasma with the current up to 130mA and pulse width over 800msec. For the surveillance and operation of KSTAR for Day-I campaign, 11 plant measurement & control systems were implemented, and also diagnostic DAQ systems for gathering the plasma physics data. Furthermore, machine interlock system and personal safety system worked to prevent KSTAR from serious damages and to protect personnel from hazardous events, respectively. The peculiar feature of KSTAR integrated control system is to has introduced EPICS(Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) as the middleware to integrate whole above heterogeneous local control systems. Therefore, it was highly demanded to verify the adaptability of EPICS and the performance of our control system to meet the requirements of Tokamak operation in the continuous plant operation and the pulse-related experiment. Throughout the Day-I operation, the KSTAR integrated control system thoroughly demonstrated its reliable and eminent performance in not only the plant operation but the discharge control.