Implementation of the SPIDER Central Interlock

The SPIDER Central Interlock is a centralized electronic system to coordinate the protection functions within the SPIDER experiment (Source for the Production of Ions of Deuterium Extracted from an RF plasma), i.e. the full-ion source prototype of the ITER Neutral Beam Injector. Due to the system time requirements, the SPIDER Central Interlock has been implemented by using PLCs for the slow functions (10 ms reaction time from fault detection to protection command emission) and National Instruments CompactRIO for the fast functions (10 ? s from fault detection to command emission). The paper will describe in detail the system hardware and software architecture. The result of the first tests and commissioning will be reported with particular focus on the implementation, execution, and performance of the interlock fast functions.