An overview of control system for the ITER electron cyclotron system

The ITER electron cyclotron (EC) system having capability of up to 26 MW generated power at 170 GHz is being procured by 5 domestic agencies via 10 procurement arrangements. This implies diverse types of equipment and complex interface management. It also places a challenge on control system architecture to entertain the constraints of procurement slicing and meeting the overall functional requirement. The envisioned architecture is to use the local control units (supplied with each procurement) and a supervisory plant controller (by ITER). This offers a reliable control configuration for such delicate and complex EC plant system. The control system is envisioned to monitor the whole plant and perform automated tasks that are today performed via direct human intervention. For example, the automated gyrotron conditioning and active control of the EC plant to respond to requests from the plasma control system (PCS). This later aspect requires rapid shut down of the gyrotrons and power supplies, deviation of the actuators to direct the power from an equatorial to upper launcher and then restart of the power generation for rapid stabilization of the magneto hydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities that occur in high performance plasma operation. The plant controller will be designed for optimized performance with the PCS and the feedback control system used to actively control the power (with modulation capability up to 5 kHz) and launching direction for MHD stabilization. (C) 2011 ITER Organization. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.