The COMPASS tokamak plasma control software performance

The COMPASS tokamak has started operation at the IPP Prague in December 2008. A new control system has been built using an ATCA-based real-time system developed at IST Lisbon. The control software is implemented on top of the MARTe real-time framework attaining control cycles as short as 50 µs, with a peak jitter of less than 9 µs. The controlled parameters, important for the plasma performance, are the plasma current, position of the plasma current center, boundary shape and horizontal and vertical velocities. These are divided in two control cycles: slow at 500 µs and fast at 50 µs.