Development of real-time plasma analysis and control algorithms for the TCV tokamak using Simulink

•A new digital control system for the TCV tokamak has been commissioned.•The system is entirely programmable by Simulink, allowing rapid algorithm development.•Different control system nodes can run different algorithms at varying sampling times.•The previous control system functions have been emulated and improved.•New capabilities include MHD control, profile control, equilibrium reconstruction.

One of the key features of the new digital plasma control system installed on the TCV tokamak is the possibility to rapidly design, test and deploy real-time algorithms. With this flexibility the new control system has been used for a large number of new experiments which exploit TCV's powerful actuators consisting of 16 individually controllable poloidal field coils and 7 real-time steerable electron cyclotron (EC) launchers. The system has been used for various applications, ranging from event-based real-time MHD control to real-time current diffusion simulations. These advances have propelled real-time control to one of the cornerstones of the TCV experimental program. Use of the Simulink graphical programming language to directly program the control system has greatly facilitated algorithm development and allowed a multitude of different algorithms to be deployed in a short time. This paper will give an overview of the developed algorithms and their application in physics experiments.