Automatic measurements of plasma parameters in the PUPR mirror and cusp plasma machine

This paper presents an ongoing effort to develop an automatic measurement system for plasma diagnostics at the Plasma Engineering Laboratory of the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico (PUPR), along with an example of its operation. The system is intended to be used with electrostatic probes such as single and double Langmuir probes, emissive probes, ion and electron energy analyzers, etc. The automatic measurement system includes automatic positioning of the probes inside the plasma chamber, automatic voltage sweep of the probes for each position, and automatic analysis of the probe I–V characteristic. The results of measurements obtained by using this automatic measurement system during a particular experiment are shown and compared with a traditional method with satisfactory results.