An automated control system has been developed for reliable operation of the laser. Long-term laser operation needs real time monitoring of various input parameters like gas mixture, discharge current, coolant conditions and chamber pressure. The major emphases were flexibility in laser operation and fast response from the control system. A real-time control system must respond to a variety of asynchronous signals. As control system complexity grows, the number of such asynchronous signals increases, until the practical limit is reached. A processor will take longer time to process each asynchronous signal, since it can handle only one process at any point of time. In this system a distributed computing network approach has been adopted. Microcontrollers are used major operations and they are coordinated by a supervisory PC. This approach will avoid all signal lines to run up to a central controller.
|
|
Block diagram of automated control system |
Supervisor PC with GUI software on the operator console |
