EDICAM (Event Detection Intelligent Camera)

A new type of fast framing camera has been developed for fusion applications by the Wigner Research Centre for Physics during the last few years. A new concept was designed for intelligent event driven imaging which is capable of focusing image readout to Regions of Interests (ROIs) where and when predefined events occur. At present these events mean intensity changes and external triggers but in the future more sophisticated methods might also be defined. The camera provides 444 Hz frame rate at full resolution of 1280 × 1024 pixels, but monitoring of smaller ROIs can be done in the 1–116 kHz range even during exposure of the full image. Keeping space limitations and the harsh environment in mind the camera is divided into a small Sensor Module and a processing card interconnected by a fast 10 Gbit optical link. This camera hardware has been used for passive monitoring of the plasma in different devices for example at ASDEX Upgrade and COMPASS with the first version of its firmware. The new firmware and software package is now available and ready for testing the new event processing features. This paper will present the operation principle and features of the Event Detection Intelligent Camera (EDICAM). The device is intended to be the central element in the 10-camera monitoring system of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator.