برنامه ریزی آزمایش و اجرای جریان کاری در به روز رسانی ASDEX

We present the current workflow from experiment proposals to the actual execution and evaluation of discharges at the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. Requests for experiments are solicited from both within the IPP and from external collaborators in the yearly call-for-proposals, checked for feasibility and compliance with the project's research goals and collected in a proposal database. During the campaign shot requests are derived from the proposals and in weekly operation meetings the requests are mapped to a schedule (shot list). Before the execution of discharges a complete set of configuration data needs to be assembled. After the execution follows the analysis (including the evaluation of the discharge as to its usefulness for the underlying proposal) and logging of the attained parameters in a physics logbook. The paper describes processes, software tools, and information management showing how they ultimately lead to an improved scientific productivity

The ASDEX Upgrade project looks back onto nearly 20 years of successful operation. It has recently been mentioned as one of the key experimental devices on the way to a nuclear reactor [1], and has experienced an increasing internationalization, characterized by extensive collaboration with other fusion laboratories and rising numbers of visiting scientists. Besides producing scientific results, one of the main present and future responsibilities is the training of session leaders and experimental fusion scientists for future devices. It is in this context, that we have decided to give a bird's eye view of the organization of experimental campaigns and of the experiences and best practices that have evolved at ASDEX Upgrade.

The above described workflow is an extremely simplified view of the actual activities revolving around an experimental campaign. It assumes a stable experimental environment and makes no mention of related workflows such as those for assembling plant system configurations, for hardware or software development and commissioning [12], for handling of events such as the unexpected behavior or failures of components, or for plasma theory and computational physics. Stronger informational integration [13] and [14] and automation appear to be keys to improve the workflow, but the latter, in particular, collides with the freedom to overrule standard procedures, which is considered to be an important asset by ASDEX Upgrade's scientists to maintain maximum flexibility.