KDAS: General-Purpose Data Acquisition System Developed for KAIST-Tokamak

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)-Tokamak Data Acquisition System (KDAS) was originally developed for KAIST-Tokamak (R/a = 0.53 m/0.14 m). It operates on a distributed system based on personal computers and has a driver-based hierarchical structure. Since KDAS can be dynamically composed of any number of available computers, and the hardware-dependent codes can be thoroughly separated into external drivers, it exhibits excellent system performance flexibility and extensibility and can optimize various user needs. It collectively controls the VXI, CAMAC, GPIB, and RS232 instrument hybrids. With these useful and convenient features, it can be applied to any computerized experiment, especially to fusion-related research. The system design and features are discussed in detail.