Real time capable infrared thermography for ASDEX Upgrade

Infrared (IR) thermography is widely used in fusion research to study power exhaust and incident heat load onto the plasma facing components. Due to the short pulse duration of today's fusion experiments, IR systems have mostly been designed for off-line data analysis. For future long pulse devices (e.g., Wendelstein 7-X, ITER), a real time evaluation of the target temperature and heat flux is mandatory. This paper shows the development of a real time capable IR system for ASDEX Upgrade. A compact IR camera has been designed incorporating the necessary magnetic and electric shielding for the detector, cooler assembly. The camera communication is based on the Camera Link industry standard. The data acquisition hardware is based on National Instruments hardware, consisting of a PXIe chassis inside and a fibre optical connected industry computer outside the torus hall. Image processing and data evaluation are performed using real time LabVIEW.