Physics requirements for the ITER plasma control system

The plasma control system (PCS) on ITER will control the evolution of the plasma parameters necessary to operate ITER throughout all phases of the discharge. The PCS is made up of a number of closely coupled subsystems that control specific physical quantities comprising: (1) wall conditioning and tritium removal, (2) plasma axisymmetric magnetic control, which includes plasma initiation, inductive plasma current, position, and shape control, (3) plasma kinetic control, including power and particle flux control to the first wall and divertor, fuelling, non-inductive plasma current, plasma pressure and fusion burn control, (4) non-axisymmetric stability control, which includes sawteeth, edge localized modes (ELMs), neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs), error fields and resistive wall modes (RWMs), Alfven eigenmodes, etc., and (5) exception handling, which includes disruption mitigation and controlled plasma termination as well as relevant plant system fault control and plasma event control.