Development environments for Tokamak plasma control

We describe a software system known as the Plasma Control System Simulation Platform (PCSSP) that is being constructed to support development of the ITER plasma control system. When mature, PCSSP will provide support for industry standard practices such as model-based controller design, simulation testing of controllers, auto-generation of controller code, hardware-and software-in-The-loop testing, use of source code management tools, and open-source methods in development of the software and control algorithms for the ITER Plasma Control System (PCS). It will also contribute to fusion-specific objectives such as validation of ITER pulse schedules prior to their use in experimental operation. We also describe a more mature but less sophisticated software suite known as TokSys, which was developed at General Atomics to support plasma control development and is expected to eventually merge with PCSSP. Plasma control development activities that use or have used these software systems are also described. We will discuss the ongoing ITER PCS control algorithm development for initial plasma operation, which takes advantage of the existing PCSSP infrastructure and library of modules. Plasma control development and initial plasma operation of the EAST and KSTAR tokamaks relied heavily on the TokSys suite, which is now in routine use at EAST, KSTAR, DIII-D, and NSTX-U. © 2015 IEEE.