Objectives and Milestones

Apart from the physical investigations at ASDEX Upgrade, methods are developed, in order to produce and measure by computer systems, reliable and precise plasmas with specific characteristics:

• Plasma shaping in reactor-like geometry

  In a reactor for technical reasons the confining magnetic field must be generated by only a few coils with a far distance from the plasma, while the plasma shape has to be adjusted precisely at many points. It is a fastidious engineering task to design and test such correlated control systems for different plasma shapes respecting machine-given stability and power limits.

• Parameter control for plasma characteristics

  Optimized discharges are controlled during several phases with their own specific plasma behaviour, their own control algorithm for heating and refilling as well as their own stability checks. Methods, dependent on the plasma status, suitable algorithms being activated, or how critical situations can be stabilized automatically, are continously developed, extended and improved by physicists and engineers.

• Development of real time measuring and control concepts

  Measurement of plasma characteristics and the control of the plasma requires efficient computer systems. By increasing their capabilities towards a distributed real time network the information flows during a discharge will be improved, and intelligent measuring and control systems will become possible.