ESC research group news

International experiments at the UK fusion machine MAST Upgrade in Culham, led by Dutch researchers, demonstrate how the innovative 'Super-X' design offers major advantages in handling the heat exhaust of fusion energy machines. Successfully managing the exhaust is one of the major hurdles in realising fusion energy.

Future fusion power plants require a careful balancing act to protect their insides from the hot plasma exhaust. DIFFER control engineer Thomas Bosman designed and tuned a control algorithm for this thorny problem in only three experimental shots.

Postdoctoral researcher Lizan Kivits has won the prestigious DISC PhD Thesis Award 2024, securing the 3rd prize for her outstanding research. The award was presented by Prof. Dr. Ir. Ming Cao on behalf of the Dutch Institute for Systems and Control (DISC) committee during the annual Benelux Meeting on 20 March 2025.

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’.

DIFFER researcher Hari Varadarajan receives a 2025 EUROfusion Engineering Grant (EEG). This award is given to outstanding early-stage engineers, working on key technological challenges essential to the European fusion programme. Varadarajan wins this prestigious award for his project ‘Cooperative control for fusion’.