Euresys frame grabbers and their CustomLogic capability have enabled a team of researchers from Columbia University, Drexel University, Fermilab, and Lehigh University to develop new capabilities for fusion energy by greatly reducing the time between signal acquisition and control command in a camera-based high-speed tokamak plasma control loop.
In another example of “Vision-in-the-Loop”, plasma control requirements reach unprecedented speed for such complex control logic.
Application
A tokamak is a machine that confines a high-temperature plasma using magnetic fields in a donut shape which scientists refer to as a torus. Fusion energy scientists believe that tokamaks are currently one of the leading plasma confinement concepts for future fusion power plants.
Active feedback control in magnetic confinement fusion devices is desirable to mitigate plasma instabilities and enable robust, high-performance operation. Optical high-speed cameras provide a powerful, non-invasive diagnostic and can be suitable for these applications.
Real-time plasma control using FPGA and Convolutional Neural Network model
In their paper, the research team described how they processed fast camera data, at rates exceeding 100,000 fps, on in-situ Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) hardware for plasma control at the HBT-EP fusion experiment at Columbia University . The purpose is to track magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instability evolution and generate control requests in real-time. To achieve that the team implemented a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model on the frame grabber’s built-in FPGA, allowing them to achieve a trigger-to-output latency of 17.6 µs and throughput up to 120,000 fps.
