A double success story: The international cooperation to build the new ICRF antennas on ASDEX Upgrade and the results obtained

New ICRF (Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequency) antennas, targeted to reduce impurity generation in the all-metal ASDEX Upgrade were designed and fabricated at different sites in an international cooperation between IPP, ASIPP (Hefei, China) and ENEA (Frascati, Italy). Installation and test were done by a multinational team at IPP. The antenna further integrates a powerful reflectometer system, designed and built by ENEA and IST (Portugal). The project, with the cooperation of four institutes in four countries on two continents was successfully completed within budget and schedule boundaries. Test results, gathered during recent experiment campaign, reveal that the new antennas have achieved their goal: A significant reduction of ICRF heating induced W impurity generation at the antennas.