CORBA-Based Distributed Software Framework for the NIF Integrated Computer Control System

Conference · Tue Nov 20 00:00:00 EST 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2007.12.025· OSTI ID:923994

Stout, E A; Carey, R W; Estes, C M; Fisher, J M; Lagin, L J; Mathisen, D G; Reynolds, C A; Sanchez, R J

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), currently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is a stadium-sized facility containing a 192-beam, 1.8 Megajoule, 500-Terawatt, ultra-violet laser system together with a 10-meter diameter target chamber with room for nearly 100 experimental diagnostics. The NIF is operated by the Integrated Computer Control System (ICCS) which is a scalable, framework-based control system distributed over 800 computers throughout the NIF. The framework provides templates and services at multiple levels of abstraction for the construction of software applications that communicate via CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture). Object-oriented software design patterns are implemented as templates and extended by application software. Developers extend the framework base classes to model the numerous physical control points and implement specializations of common application behaviors. An estimated 140 thousand software objects, each individually addressable through CORBA, will be active at full scale. Many of these objects have persistent configuration information stored in a database. The configuration data is used to initialize the objects at system start-up. Centralized server programs that implement events, alerts, reservations, data archival, name service, data access, and process management provide common system wide services. At the highest level, a model-driven, distributed shot automation system provides a flexible and scalable framework for automatic sequencing of work-flow for control and monitoring of NIF shots. The shot model, in conjunction with data defining the parameters and goals of an experiment, describes the steps to be performed by each subsystem in order to prepare for and fire a NIF shot. Status and usage of this distributed framework are described.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 923994
• Report Number(s): UCRL-CONF-236998; TRN: US0801998
• Resource Relation: Journal Volume: 83; Journal Issue: 2-3; Conference: Presented at: Sixth IAEA Technical Meeting on Control, Data Acquisition, and Remote Participation for Fusion Research, Inuyama, Japan, Jun 04 - Jun 08, 2007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
42 ENGINEERING
ARCHITECTURE
AUTOMATION
COMPUTERS
CONFIGURATION
CONSTRUCTION
CONTROL SYSTEMS
DATA ACQUISITION
DESIGN
IAEA
LASERS
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY
MANAGEMENT
MONITORING
TARGET CHAMBERS
US NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY