Synchronous Databus Network in ITER: Open source real-time network for the next nuclear fusion experiment

The next nuclear fusion experiment, ITER, is providing the infrastructure for the optimal operation of a burning plasma, requiring feedback control of discharge parameters and on-line evaluation of computationally intensive models running in a cluster of controller nodes. Thus, the synchronization of the available information on the plasma and plant state variables among the controller nodes is a key issue for ITER. The ITER conceptual design aims to perform feedback control on a cluster of distributed controllers connected by a Synchronous Databus Network (SDN). Therefore it is mandatory to achieve a deterministic data exchange among the controller nodes with a refresh rate of at least 1 kHz and a jitter of at least 50 μs. Thus, a conservative estimate of the data flow within the controller network can be 3 kSample/ms.In this paper the open source RTnet project is evaluated to meet the requirements of the SDN of ITER. A testbed involving a cluster of eight nodes connected over a standard ethernet network has been set up to simulate a distributed real-time control system. The main goal of the test is to verify the compliance of the performance with the ITER SDN requirements.