Testing and commissioning the multinode ECRH realtime control system on the FTU tokamak

•We conceived, developed and commissioned a distributed multinode control hardware with proven real-time performances.•The adopted hardware solution is modular and reconfigurable.•The adopted software solution is able to host many experimental scenarios and is totally remotely programmable, configurable and testable.•Effective results in on-line MHD instability detection are presented.

In tokamak machines, the ECRH heating system is crucial for plasma heating and for stability control. To be reliable, an ECRH control system should be deeply integrated into the supervision and control systems of the machine, and must be interconnected to the diagnostic instruments and the power actuators of the plant. Moreover, several ECRH experiments are under investigation by the community. So, for the sake of efficiency, it should be possible to reprogram a control system on the fly and possibly from remote locations, even during experiment campaigns. This paper presents the new ECRH control system under development at the FTU tokamak. This system consists of multiple units that acquire and process data and are linked through Ethernet and dedicated fiber-optic data links, under a Linux/MARTe framework. This paper also presents open-loop operative results, both about performances of the control system and about signal processing of the diagnostics relevant to MHD control.