Design of power and phase feedback control system for ion cyclotron resonance heating in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak

Abstract

Ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) heating system is an important auxiliary heating method in the experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). In EAST, several megawatts of power are transmitted with coaxial transmission lines and coupled to the plasma. For the long pulse and high power operation of the ICRF waves heating system, it is very important to effectively control the power and initial phase of the ICRF signals. In this paper, a power and phase feedback control system is described based on field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices, which can realize complicated algorithms with the advantages of fast running and high reliability. The transmitted power and antenna phase are measured by a power and phase detector and digitized. The power and phase feedback control algorithms is designed to achieve the target power and antenna phase. The power feedback control system was tested on a dummy load and during plasma experiments. Test results confirm that the feedback control system can precisely control ICRF power and antenna phase and is robust during plasma variations.

Keywords

• EAST
• ICRF waves heating
• Power and phase detecting
• Feedback controlling
• FPGA