Plasma strike-point sweeping on JET tokamak with the eXtreme shape controller

The high-energy ionized particles collected by the divertor structures in a tokamak reactor cause a localized thermal load around the strike-points, which are the intersections of the separatrix with the divertor tiles. To spread on a larger region this thermal load, it is convenient to resort to a sweeping, i.e., a periodical movement of the strike-points. This paper introduces the new model-based sweeping algorithm recently implemented on the Joint European Torus tokamak, within the eXtreme Shape Controller architecture. Index Terms--Plasma-shape control, plasma strike-point sweeping, tokamaks control.