Search

• Preliminary results on the magnetic control of the plasma shape on DEMO. • Current, position and shape control performed at the same time. • Controller performance tested in the presence of an H-L transition. About 85% of the primary energy is currently obtained from fossil sources. In the next future, nuclear fusion can significantly contribute to energy production: the fuel is in principle unlimited and radioactive waste are short lived. Next steps in fusion research are represented by the two tokamaks ITER, which is under construction, and DEMO, which is in its conceptual design phase. In this paper we focus on a specific aspect of DEMO design, that is indeed crucial for tokamak safe operation: plasma vertical and shape control. It is well known that a plasma with elongated cross-section exhibits a vertical instability that needs to be feedback controlled. Typically on operating tokamaks, and in ITER, this task is accomplished using in-vessel actuator coils. Since in the present DEMO design these coils are not foreseen, hereafter we assumed that all the actuator coils, located outside the vessel, are used at the same time to guarantee both vertical stabilization and shape control, resorting to a suitable geometric decoupling. The performance of the controller is shown in simulation using a nonlinear evolution code during a plasma H-L back-transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives an overview of the scope and context of the CODAC high-level real-time applications (Supervision and Plasma Control) and presents the strategy and current state of design of the tools to support the implementation. A real-time framework, which is currently under development with strong support of the worldwide fusion community will not only support the implementation of plasma control strategies with the extensive exception handling and forecasting functionality foreseen for ITER, but also integrated commissioning, orchestration and supervision as well as the real-time needs of ITER plant system developers. A second cornerstone in the implementation strategy is the development of a powerful simulation environment (Plasma Control System Simulation Platform – PCSSP) to design and verify control strategies, event handling and orchestration and automation. The development of PCSSP is currently under contract and this paper will also give an overview of its current state of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]