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Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Microwave Reflectometry for Plasma Position and Shape Control on Future Nuclear Fusion Devices

Providing energy from fusion and finding ways to scale up the fusion process to commercial proportions in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way is one of the grand challenges for engineering. Controlling the burning plasma in real-time is one of the critical issues that need to be...

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Autores principales: Gonçalves, Bruno, Varela, Paulo, Silva, António, Silva, Filipe, Santos, Jorge, Ricardo, Emanuel, Vale, Alberto, Luís, Raúl, Nietiadi, Yohanes, Malaquias, Artur, Belo, Jorge, Dias, José, Ferreira, Jorge, Franke, Thomas, Biel, Wolfgang, Heuraux, Stéphane, Ribeiro, Tiago, De Masi, Gianluca, Tudisco, Onofrio, Cavazzana, Roberto, Marchiori, Giuseppe, D’Arcangelo, Ocleto
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10142666/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37112274
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23083926
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author Gonçalves, Bruno
Varela, Paulo
Silva, António
Silva, Filipe
Santos, Jorge
Ricardo, Emanuel
Vale, Alberto
Luís, Raúl
Nietiadi, Yohanes
Malaquias, Artur
Belo, Jorge
Dias, José
Ferreira, Jorge
Franke, Thomas
Biel, Wolfgang
Heuraux, Stéphane
Ribeiro, Tiago
De Masi, Gianluca
Tudisco, Onofrio
Cavazzana, Roberto
Marchiori, Giuseppe
D’Arcangelo, Ocleto
author_facet Gonçalves, Bruno
Varela, Paulo
Silva, António
Silva, Filipe
Santos, Jorge
Ricardo, Emanuel
Vale, Alberto
Luís, Raúl
Nietiadi, Yohanes
Malaquias, Artur
Belo, Jorge
Dias, José
Ferreira, Jorge
Franke, Thomas
Biel, Wolfgang
Heuraux, Stéphane
Ribeiro, Tiago
De Masi, Gianluca
Tudisco, Onofrio
Cavazzana, Roberto
Marchiori, Giuseppe
D’Arcangelo, Ocleto
author_sort Gonçalves, Bruno
collection PubMed
description Providing energy from fusion and finding ways to scale up the fusion process to commercial proportions in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way is one of the grand challenges for engineering. Controlling the burning plasma in real-time is one of the critical issues that need to be addressed. Plasma Position Reflectometry (PPR) is expected to have an important role in next-generation fusion machines, such as DEMO, as a diagnostic to monitor the position and shape of the plasma continuously, complementing magnetic diagnostics. The reflectometry diagnostic uses radar science methods in the microwave and millimetre wave frequency ranges and is envisaged to measure the radial edge density profile at several poloidal angles providing data for the feedback control of the plasma position and shape. While significant steps have already been given to accomplish that goal, with proof of concept tested first in ASDEX-Upgrade and afterward in COMPASS, important, ground-breaking work is still ongoing. The Divertor Test Tokamak (DTT) facility presents itself as the appropriate future fusion device to implement, develop, and test a PPR system, thus contributing to building a knowledge database in plasma position reflectometry required for its application in DEMO. At DEMO, the PPR diagnostic’s in-vessel antennas and waveguides, as well as the magnetic diagnostics, may be exposed to neutron irradiation fluences 5 to 50 times greater than those experienced by ITER. In the event of failure of either the magnetic or microwave diagnostics, the equilibrium control of the DEMO plasma may be jeopardized. It is, therefore, imperative to ensure that these systems are designed in such a way that they can be replaced if necessary. To perform reflectometry measurements at the 16 envisaged poloidal locations in DEMO, plasma-facing antennas and waveguides are needed to route the microwaves between the plasma through the DEMO upper ports (UPs) to the diagnostic hall. The main integration approach for this diagnostic is to incorporate these groups of antennas and waveguides into a diagnostics slim cassette (DSC), which is a dedicated complete poloidal segment specifically designed to be integrated with the water-cooled lithium lead (WCLL) breeding blanket system. This contribution presents the multiple engineering and physics challenges addressed while designing reflectometry diagnostics using radio science techniques. Namely, short-range dedicated radars for plasma position and shape control in future fusion experiments, the advances enabled by the designs for ITER and DEMO, and the future perspectives. One key development is in electronics, aiming at an advanced compact coherent fast frequency sweeping RF back-end [23–100 GHz in few μs] that is being developed at IPFN-IST using commercial Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMIC). The compactness of this back-end design is crucial for the successful integration of many measurement channels in the reduced space available in future fusion machines. Prototype tests of these devices are foreseen to be performed in current nuclear fusion machines.
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spelling pubmed-101426662023-04-29 Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Microwave Reflectometry for Plasma Position and Shape Control on Future Nuclear Fusion Devices Gonçalves, Bruno Varela, Paulo Silva, António Silva, Filipe Santos, Jorge Ricardo, Emanuel Vale, Alberto Luís, Raúl Nietiadi, Yohanes Malaquias, Artur Belo, Jorge Dias, José Ferreira, Jorge Franke, Thomas Biel, Wolfgang Heuraux, Stéphane Ribeiro, Tiago De Masi, Gianluca Tudisco, Onofrio Cavazzana, Roberto Marchiori, Giuseppe D’Arcangelo, Ocleto Sensors (Basel) Review Providing energy from fusion and finding ways to scale up the fusion process to commercial proportions in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way is one of the grand challenges for engineering. Controlling the burning plasma in real-time is one of the critical issues that need to be addressed. Plasma Position Reflectometry (PPR) is expected to have an important role in next-generation fusion machines, such as DEMO, as a diagnostic to monitor the position and shape of the plasma continuously, complementing magnetic diagnostics. The reflectometry diagnostic uses radar science methods in the microwave and millimetre wave frequency ranges and is envisaged to measure the radial edge density profile at several poloidal angles providing data for the feedback control of the plasma position and shape. While significant steps have already been given to accomplish that goal, with proof of concept tested first in ASDEX-Upgrade and afterward in COMPASS, important, ground-breaking work is still ongoing. The Divertor Test Tokamak (DTT) facility presents itself as the appropriate future fusion device to implement, develop, and test a PPR system, thus contributing to building a knowledge database in plasma position reflectometry required for its application in DEMO. At DEMO, the PPR diagnostic’s in-vessel antennas and waveguides, as well as the magnetic diagnostics, may be exposed to neutron irradiation fluences 5 to 50 times greater than those experienced by ITER. In the event of failure of either the magnetic or microwave diagnostics, the equilibrium control of the DEMO plasma may be jeopardized. It is, therefore, imperative to ensure that these systems are designed in such a way that they can be replaced if necessary. To perform reflectometry measurements at the 16 envisaged poloidal locations in DEMO, plasma-facing antennas and waveguides are needed to route the microwaves between the plasma through the DEMO upper ports (UPs) to the diagnostic hall. The main integration approach for this diagnostic is to incorporate these groups of antennas and waveguides into a diagnostics slim cassette (DSC), which is a dedicated complete poloidal segment specifically designed to be integrated with the water-cooled lithium lead (WCLL) breeding blanket system. This contribution presents the multiple engineering and physics challenges addressed while designing reflectometry diagnostics using radio science techniques. Namely, short-range dedicated radars for plasma position and shape control in future fusion experiments, the advances enabled by the designs for ITER and DEMO, and the future perspectives. One key development is in electronics, aiming at an advanced compact coherent fast frequency sweeping RF back-end [23–100 GHz in few μs] that is being developed at IPFN-IST using commercial Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMIC). The compactness of this back-end design is crucial for the successful integration of many measurement channels in the reduced space available in future fusion machines. Prototype tests of these devices are foreseen to be performed in current nuclear fusion machines. MDPI 2023-04-12 /pmc/articles/PMC10142666/ /pubmed/37112274 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23083926 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Gonçalves, Bruno
Varela, Paulo
Silva, António
Silva, Filipe
Santos, Jorge
Ricardo, Emanuel
Vale, Alberto
Luís, Raúl
Nietiadi, Yohanes
Malaquias, Artur
Belo, Jorge
Dias, José
Ferreira, Jorge
Franke, Thomas
Biel, Wolfgang
Heuraux, Stéphane
Ribeiro, Tiago
De Masi, Gianluca
Tudisco, Onofrio
Cavazzana, Roberto
Marchiori, Giuseppe
D’Arcangelo, Ocleto
Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Microwave Reflectometry for Plasma Position and Shape Control on Future Nuclear Fusion Devices
title Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Microwave Reflectometry for Plasma Position and Shape Control on Future Nuclear Fusion Devices
title_full Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Microwave Reflectometry for Plasma Position and Shape Control on Future Nuclear Fusion Devices
title_fullStr Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Microwave Reflectometry for Plasma Position and Shape Control on Future Nuclear Fusion Devices
title_full_unstemmed Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Microwave Reflectometry for Plasma Position and Shape Control on Future Nuclear Fusion Devices
title_short Advances, Challenges, and Future Perspectives of Microwave Reflectometry for Plasma Position and Shape Control on Future Nuclear Fusion Devices
title_sort advances, challenges, and future perspectives of microwave reflectometry for plasma position and shape control on future nuclear fusion devices
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10142666/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37112274
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23083926
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