Central to the DCPS framework is the finite state machine
shown in Fig. 1 that contains ten possible states reflecting
the system being in one of four modes: plasma operations,
auto test, simulate, and maintenance. Plasma operations, as
the name implies, is the real operating mode for actually
protecting NSTX-U. Auto test is for attaching an external
simulator, whereas simulate is for running internal simulations.
While the first three modes represent different ways to run
the system, the last mode, Maintenance, is for modifying the
runtime characteristics of DCPS