Synthetic camera diagnostic for plasma boundary measurement

Fusion pilot plant and reactor devices will likely operate in long-pulse, steady-state scenarios. For Mirnov coils, flux loops, and other integrated magnetic diagnostics, noise and offsets in the dB/dt measurements coupled with long integration time would result in integration drifts that dominate over the actual signal. Since real-time control of the plasma boundary presently relies on equilibria reconstructed from magnetic signals, a new type of diagnostic is needed for boundary identification on future devices. In this work, filtered line-emissions from partially ionized impurities in the edge are proposed to aid in identifying the last-closed flux surface. A synthetic camera diagnostic has been developed, which calculates the expected image based on an equilibrium reconstruction and electron temperature and density profiles near the edge. Some useful capabilities include impurity selection, wavelength filtering, and flexible camera settings. Comparisons are made between synthetic images and actual experimental measurements on DIII-D and EAST.