On plasma vertical stabilization at EAST tokamak

In this paper we discuss the problem of plasma vertical stabilization at the EAST tokamak. By exploiting a plasma/circuit linearized model, we show that the plant cannot be strongly stabilized by using the in-vessel coils and a single-input-single-output controller that feeds back only the plasma vertical speed (z)over dot(p) (i.e. without integral action on (z)over dot(p)). Moreover, a stable multi-input-single-output controller that stabilizes the plant without the need of feeding back the plasma vertical position is presented. The proposed solution permits to achieve stabilization of the EAST plant without coupling the vertical stabilization system with the plasma shape controller. Such decoupling is a key requirement to enable advanced design approaches for plasma shape controller.