Toward MIMO Control of Advanced Configurations: ITER-like Voltage Driven Vertical Stabilization System Tested on EAST

In the framework of the EU-CN collaboration on power exhaust issues, a voltage driven vertical stabilization system designed by a joint ASIPP-CREATE-ENEA team was successfully tested on EAST recently, a key step toward the MIMO control of advanced configurations. Five Italian scientists came to Hefei to join the experiment for more than a week.

It is important to achieve MIMO control of advanced configurations on tokamak, because only in this way the shape control system can be decoupled from the vertical stabilization, and the XSC technique successfully used in JET can be applied to EAST in the near future.

Tested in pulses @ 2.1 s for 1.2 s in conjunction with slow plasma current and radial position control, it  is demonstrated that this new vertical stabilization system is identical to the one proposed for the VS3 control in ITER, and it is compatible with the installation of a new ITER-like multivariable shape controller for advanced configurations. (Reported by Zhengping Luo and Qianqian Qiu; Images by Gianmaria De Tommasi and Xianzu Gong)

Voltage driven stabilization system tested in pulse #69880 @ 2.1 s for 1.2 s in conjunction with slow plasma current and radial position control

Voltage driven stabilization system tested in pulse #70077 @ 2.1 s for 1.2 s in conjunction with slow control of plasma current, radial and vertical position

From left to right: Antonio Castaldo, Alfredo Pironti, Gianmaria De Tommasi, Roberto Ambrosino, Bingjia Xiao, Adriano Mele, Zhengping Luo 

From left to right: Jiangang Li, Gianmaria De Tommasi, Alfredo Pironti, Flavio Crisanti, Qiping Yuan, Raffaele Albanese, Antonio Castaldo, Bingjia Xiao, Zhengping Luo