Graphic tools for plasma shape control design and validation

This paper describes a set of graphic tools for the design and validation of the extreme shape controller (XSC), recently implemented at the JET tokamak. The XSC enables operation with high elongation and triangularity plasmas and has been extensively tested at JET in 2003. The software suite, called XSC tools, has been developed to automate the design procedure of the XSC. These tools make use of GUIs to allow nonspecialist users to prepare new operating scenarios, without the help from modeling and control specialists. Once a new controller is generated, all its parameters are saved into a text file, which is used to perform the validation of the scenario via simulations. The same file is then loaded by the real-time code running on the plant, without any further processing. This feature guarantees that the controller which is running on the plant is exactly the same one validated through simulations. An additional effort has been made in order to render the XSC tools machine independent, that is to enable their use on any tokamak