DIFFER researcher Chris Orrico receives the 2023 IEEE Technical Committee on Energy Systems (TC-ES) Outstanding Student Paper Prize (OSPP). The prize rewards his Control Systems Letters (L-CSS) publication ‘Mixed-Integer MPC Strategies for Fueling and Density Control in Fusion Tokamaks’. The prize was presented by the technical committee on energy systems during the 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Milan.
Chris’ paper was one of the finalists at the conference of 2023, which is the largest annual conference on control systems, attracting a few thousand visitors every year. In the summer of 2024 the technical committee awarded Chris the prize. The paper is a good example of the combination of fundamental control theory and nuclear fusion research. Chris: “What we designed in this paper, was a novel tool for fast mixed-integer optimization, intended for real-time core density profile control with pellet fueling in nuclear fusion tokamaks. Previous work of fellow researcher Thomas Bosman showed that because fueling pellets in ITER are such quick, large events, you have to treat them as discrete actions. For both control performance and safety. This is a problem for all future fusion machines that will use pellet fueling. It is extremely computationally expensive to predict safe discrete control actions. From the perspective of control systems, you need to decide on the order of milliseconds whether to fire a fuel pellet. But the optimization problem necessary to make that decision with discrete actions requires seconds, so it’s not fast enough. What we developed with this awarded paper, was an algorithm to compute discrete decisions 3 orders in magnitude faster, fast enough to do real time control.”
In love with nuclear fusion
Chris completed his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering in the US, at Duke University. He realized he wanted to focus more on renewable energy, in particular nuclear fusion, that he fell in love with. “There were more options for me to follow a master’s program other than in nuclear fusion. I chose Eindhoven above other options, because it’s a high quality, specialized program in a topic I am passionate about. Furthermore, I think the Eindhoven University of Technology is probably the best place in the world to study nuclear fusion.” In July 2022 Chris started his master’s internship at ITER, with DIFFER director Marco de Baar as his supervisor. He finalized his master’s thesis in Thomas Morgan’s Plasma Material Interactions research group.
Innovation loop
After finishing his master, Chris started as a joint PhD candidate between the Energy Systems and Control Group under Matthijs van Berkel and the TU/e Control Systems Technology group under Maurice Heemels and Dinesh Krishnamoorthy. “I wanted to go back to control systems, because I felt I could have the most impact on actual fusion reactors, given my background. You can change things in the short term, so that the machines run better. Of course the physics and mechanical design fundamentals are crucial, but the innovation loop is much faster in control systems. I see a lot of low hanging fruit; big improvements can be made by not terribly complex control methods.”
Prize
The aim of this Prize is to recognize young talents in the area of process control for energy systems. The Prize recognizes excellence in a CDC paper whose topic area falls under the IEEE Technical Committee on Energy Systems.
For more information about the paper of Orrico and his coauthors, please visit the repository section on the DIFFER website. C. A. Orrico, M. van Berkel, T. O. S. J. Bosman, W. P. M. H. Heemels and D. Krishnamoorthy, "Mixed-Integer MPC Strategies for Fueling and Density Control in Fusion Tokamaks," in IEEE Control Systems Letters, vol. 7, pp. 1897-1902, 2023
Go to the News page.