Emulation of ITER Axisymmetric Control Characteristics on DIII-D

D3D is well suited to provide a testing ground for remaining unknowns in ITER control and exception handling. Control software have been developed to emulate ITER-like control characteristics aimed at enabling D3D to act as a scaled model for ITER development. Currently, we focus on the emulation of the magnetic control characteristics, which is implemented in two ways dependent on experimenter’s choice. A static method uses a model linearized around a scaled ITER plasma. First, a linearized model is used to calculate the ITER coil current dynamics from the power supply voltage. Then the ITER coil currents are mapped to D3D coils. Finally, a D3D current feedback controller achieves the currents calculated. The alternate method instead calculates the expected ITER field, and then calculates in real-time, the D3D coil currents that best achieves the D3D scaled equivalent. Simultaneously, vertical control characteristics are emulated by using active control to slow down the vertical instability growth rate to the ITER timescale. The emulation has been tested in D3D vacuum shots, and in control simulations. The development of a stand-in ITER controller is ongoing to enable the first experiment of emulated ITER control on D3D.