Control of Tokamaks using ASTRA – Matlab Integration

The need to find new sources of power has emerged as an important issue due to the existing worldwide increase in the demand of energy. In this way, nuclear fusion has turned out to be a promising source of this power which has lead to an increasing interest in finding solutions for the different tokamak control problems. In order to find appropriate controllers for tokamaks several kinds of codes and models have been developed. In this paper one of those codes, ASTRA, is used to simulate the performance of a tokamak. The aim of this paper is to show how the ASTRA code for tokamaks can be integrated into the Matlab – Simulink tool with the purpose of making more convenient and easier the development of suitable controllers for tokamaks. In particular as a demonstrative case study, a simple PID controller has been designed for the loop voltage of a tokamak. The simulations obtained from the example presented in this manuscript show the feasibility and the goodness of the proposed ASTRA – Matlab integration. This integration composes a new and innovative issue in the tokamak control area and it provides new possibilities to the development and application of advanced control schemes to the standardized and widely extended ASTRA simulation code for tokamaks.