On-line plasma shape identification via magnetic measurements

It is pointed out that plasma position and shape control calls for fast algorithms for plasma boundary identification, i.e. methods capable of determining the shape in a time interval not longer than the sampling time of the controller. The authors present an online identification algorithm which realizes a trade-off between accurate plasma shape reconstruction and computational burden. The proposed identification has been tested with reference to some types of ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) plasmas