Euriware to develop I&C system for beam alignment of CEA’s Megajoule laser

The Military Applications Department under the French Atomic and Alternative Energy Commission (CEA) has chosen Euriware to create the instrumentation and control system (ICS) that will serve to align and converge the Megajoule laser’s 176 beams. The Megajoule laser is one of the Simulation program’s¹ main tools.

The Megajoule laser recreates laboratory thermodynamic conditions that are similar to the thermodynamic conditions that occur during the operation of nuclear weapons. The laser is amplified to deliver 1.8 megajoules of laser power in the form of light, converging on microbead target 2.4 mm in diameter. A succession of mirrors is used to direct each of the 176 beams so that they will converge on the microbead target, which is placed in the center of the experiment room.

• Euriware will develop the Level 1 monitoring software for the ICS that drives the 264 cameras and 5,600 motors which align the laser beams. The software is deployed over the system’s automatic control systems and computers and interfaced with the Level 2 supervision and the Megajoule laser’s computer-assisted maintenance management system.
• Euriware will also supply all ICS equipment, including the automatic control systems, computers, servers and network. A Euriware team of 6-8 specialists in industrial data processing and in instrumentation and control² will work on the project from 2010 to 2014 to create and start up the first set of eight beamlines, then to deploy the other 21 sets.

The contract provides for a technology transfer to the CEA, allowing it to carry out systems maintenance and upgrade.

¹ In 1996, France signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The French nuclear weapons simulation program is designed to guarantee the reliability and safety of nuclear deterrent weapons through the use of computer simulation to plot the operational phases of a weapon. The Megajoule laser is a key system in this simulation program.

² Euriware’s Industrial and Technical Systems division has some 300 industrial data processing and I&C specialists.