Actuator allocation for integrated control in tokamaks: architectural design and a mixed-integer programming algorithm

In this paper, we analyze possible architectures to interface the control tasks with the allocation of actuators inside the PCS. Additionally, we present an efficient actuator allocation algorithm for Heating and Current Drive (H&CD) actuators. The actuator allocation problem is formulated as a Mixed-Integer Quadratic Programming optimization problem, allowing to quickly search for the best allocation option without the need to compute all allocation options. The algorithms performance is demonstrated in examples involving the full proposed ITER H&CD system, where the desired allocation behavior is successfully achieved. This work contributes to establishing integrated control routines with shared actuators on existing and future tokamaks.