Novel Application of Parallel Computing Techniques in Soft X-Rays Plasma Measurement Systems for the WEST Experimental Thermal Fusion Reactor

Krawczyk, Rafał Dominik; Linczuk, Paweł; Wojeński, Andrzej; Poźniak, Krzysztof T.; Kasprowicz, G.; Zabołotny, W.; Gąska, Michał; Mazon, D.; Jardin, A.; Czarski, Tomasz; Kolasiński, Piotr; Chernyshova, M.; Kowalska-Strzęciwilk, E.; Malinowski, K.

doi:10.1109/pdp2018.2018.00024

Cited by 5 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…Further limitations are introduced by the ES part. Latest analyzes [37,38] have shown that a system based on Xeon e5 S2600 v4 CPU with 10 cores is able to process up to 6.9 million photons per second. However, the system is still under development, and further improvement both regarding the PCIe bandwidth and processing throughput is expected.…”

Section: Current Results For the West Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

FPGA and Embedded Systems Based Fast Data Acquisition and Processing for GEM Detectors

et al. 2018

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Gas electron multiplier (GEM) detectors (Sauli in Nucl Instrum Methods Phys Res A 805:2-24, 2016. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.nima.2015.07.060 (special issue in memory of Glenn F. Knoll); Buzulutskov in Instrum Exp Tech 50(3):287-310, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1134/S0020441207030013) are widely used for detection of ionizing radiation. When used in the proportional mode, they provide information about time, location, and energy of a detected particle (Chernyshova et al. in Fusion Eng Design, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2017.03.107; Altunbas et al. in Nucl Instrum Methods Phys Res A 490(1-2):177-203, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-9002(02)00910-5. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/ pii/S0168900202009105). Modern technologies allow full utilization of detector properties, by acquiring the waveform of output current pulses and processing them using sophisticated digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. The current pulses must be digitized at high speed (up to 125 MHz) with high resolution (up to 12-bits). Due to the high volume of the produced data, it is necessary to provide the high-performance data acquisition system (DAQ) to transmit the data to processing units. Efficient processing of the GEM data requires distributed parallel processing system to perform multiple tasks (Czarski et al. in Rev Sci Instrum 87(11), 11E336, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4961559): (1) Filter out the background and transmit only hit related data. (2) Extract the parameters of a hit, describing the time and charge (related to energy). (3) Estimate the hit position by combining information from multiple anode pads. (4) In case of 2D GEM detectors, correlate pulses received from X and Y pads (pixels) or W, U and V pads (pixels). (5) Separate the hits overlapping in space or in time (if possible) to support detector operation at higher rates. The above functionalities may be achieved in different hardware architectures. The typical hardware platforms include FPGA chips, standard or embedded computer systems with different computation accelerators (Wojenski et al. in J Instrum 11(11):C11035, 2016. http://stacks. iop.org/1748-0221/11/i=11/a=C11035; Nowak et al. in J Phys Conf Ser 513(5):052-024, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1088/ 1742-6596/513/5/052024. http://stacks.iop.org/1742-6596/513/i=5/a=052024?key=crossref.c5912cfa72c30b309821e14c43 84948f. The paper shows possible solutions with their feasibility for particular applications.

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Section: Current Results For the West Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

FPGA and Embedded Systems Based Fast Data Acquisition and Processing for GEM Detectors

et al. 2018

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“…Processing can be evaluated and profiled in a possibly broad range of hardware platforms, thus helping to deeply understand the data access patterns and parallelism. The methodology has been proposed to systematically develop and design the back‐end for the impurities diagnostic, and to efficiently decompose workloads in a configuration of possibly‐fastest, best‐fitting devices.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The output from the device can be fed back to tokamak control, which in the future can be used for eliminating the runtime plasma impurities. The front‐end impact on the back‐end analysis has been discussed by Krawczyk et al The development of the heterogeneous architecture of FPGAs and HPC servers has been documented by Krawczyk et al with the most relevant advantages of such an approach. The real‐time modes of operation have been presented by Krawczyk et al…”

Section: The Fast Plasma Impurities Diagnostic System For Soft X‐raysmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the digital front‐end data analysis imposes the format of the streams. The statistical properties of the back‐end are also influenced by the global trigger selection and the experiment particulars . That impacts optimization, performance, evaluation, and the development of parallel solutions.…”

Section: The Fast Plasma Impurities Diagnostic System For Soft X‐raysmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A heterogeneous field‐programmable gate array (FPGA) and server‐based architecture was proposed for impurities diagnostic . Positive results were achieved with Intel Xeon CPUs and Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors in handling intensive computations . Nevertheless, a question has arisen if the solution can be further optimized with fine‐grained parallel devices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parallel computing in soft X‐rays plasma diagnostic systems for thermal fusion reactors—feasibility studies for GPUs

Krawczyk

Czarski

Linczuk

et al. 2019

Concurrency and Computation

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This paper presents feasibility studies in utilizing graphics processing units (GPUs) as high-performance computing hardware with front-end electronics in high-scale magnetic confinement thermal fusion experiments. The objective of the research is to provide scalable, high-throughput, and low-latency measurements for the runtime tokamak metallic impurities X-ray diagnostic for the Tungsten Environment in Steady-State Tokamak (WEST) reactor. The heterogeneous system of front-end with field-programmable gate arrays and the back-end server was introduced to decompose workloads efficiently. It allows the comprehensive evaluation of CPUs and accelerators. In particular, a novel implementation of the back-end algorithm for GPU with the performance analysis are presented. INTRODUCTIONThe development of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is currently the second largest research project in the world by expenditure. It is associated with complex interdisciplinary studies, including computer engineering. 1,2 To sustain the reaction and to achieve the positive energy balance, numerous diagnostic and control tools need to be provided. 3 Among them, there is a measurement of soft X-rays in the spectral range corresponding to the metallic impurities emission. Controlling the impurities is extremely important to increase a reaction efficiency and to provide a safe mode of operation. 3,4 Without such control, metallic particles can accumulate and cause disruptions damaging the reactor. 1,4 A heterogeneous field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and server-based architecture was proposed for impurities diagnostic. 4-6 Positive results were achieved with Intel Xeon CPUs and Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors in handling intensive computations. 5 Nevertheless, a question has arisen if the solution can be further optimized with fine-grained parallel devices. Therefore, this work supplements the research with a new algorithm for a graphics processing unit (GPU) and a subsequent performance study. The objective is to maximize throughput and to reduce the latency in handling large diagnostic workloads.This paper is presented as follows. In Section 2, there is a description of related works and issues. Section 3 covers the processing outline and the system overview. In Section 4, there is a discussion on the utilization of GPUs in the analysis, and the parallel algorithm is proposed.Section 5 presents the performance results. Conclusions and potential future works are covered in Section 6. Concurrency Computat Pract Exper. 2020;32:e6028. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cpe FPGAs have been successfully utilized in various high-scale, high-throughput, and hard real-time physics experiments. Nevertheless, limitations were observed in particular applications. Regarding plasma physics, some computations are too complex to be implemented with FPGA resources, which are also required for fast transmission and utility. Moreover, the algorithm modification is difficult and time-consuming for the front-end with custom boards and for firmware...

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The methodology of development of real-time and high-throughput heterogeneous devices for plasma confinement fusion diagnostics

Krawczyk

Linczuk

Czarski

et al. 2018

Photonics Applications in Astronomy, Communications, Industry, and High-Energy Physics Experiments 2018

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Novel Application of Parallel Computing Techniques in Soft X-Rays Plasma Measurement Systems for the WEST Experimental Thermal Fusion Reactor

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

FPGA and Embedded Systems Based Fast Data Acquisition and Processing for GEM Detectors

FPGA and Embedded Systems Based Fast Data Acquisition and Processing for GEM Detectors

Parallel computing in soft X‐rays plasma diagnostic systems for thermal fusion reactors—feasibility studies for GPUs

The methodology of development of real-time and high-throughput heterogeneous devices for plasma confinement fusion diagnostics

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