Kalman filters for real-time magnetic island phase tracking

For control of neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs) and the resulting rotating magnetic islands in tokamak plasmas, the frequency and phase of the magnetic islands need to be accurately tracked in real-time. In previous experiments on TEXTOR, this was achieved using a phase-locked loop (PLL). For ASDEX Upgrade however, the desired frequency range in which the islands are to be tracked (100 Hz–10 kHz) is much larger than is possible with a PLL. In this contribution, an extended Kalman filter (EKF) and an unscented Kalman filter (UKF) are proposed for real-time frequency, phase and amplitude tracking of sinusoidal signals, based on noisy measurements. Compared to PLLs, the EKF and UKF are able to track sinusoidal signals in a much larger frequency range. The filters are applied on synthetic data and on experimental data from the TEXTOR and TCV tokamaks, from which we conclude that the UKF can be useful for real-time control of magnetic islands on ASDEX Upgrade.