MDS-Plus data acquisition engine

MDS‐Plus, a model driven data acquisition system being jointly developed at Istituto Gas Ionizzati, MIT Plasma Fusion Center, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, is based on the concept of an experiment model. The model contains descriptions of experiment data, devices, and actions to be performed. The data acquisition engine, i.e., the part of the system which actually executes the acquisition process, is driven by the contents of the model itself and implemented as a set of independent processes. A scheduler keeps the data acquisition engine in step with a state machine reflecting the operation of the actual experiment; a dispatcher takes care of the appropriate sequencing of the operations associated with each state of the experiment; various servers actually execute actions on behalf of the dispatcher.