The Development and Operation of Computerized Neutral Beamline Systems

Neutral hydrogen beam injectors have been demonstrated to be effective in heating magnetically confined plasmas. At Princeton a record ion temperature of 6.5 keV was achieved on the Princeton Large Torus (PLT) with the aid of four injectors. Higher power injectors are being designed and fabricated for other devices including the Poloidal Divertor Experiment (PDX) and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR). Dedicated minicomputer systems interfaced with CAMAC hardware are now operational on the four PLT neutral beam injectors as well as a neutral beam test stand. These systems provide data acquisition, archival, analysis, monitoring and control support. They illustrate many of the important considerations which relate to the future applications of this technology.