Speaker
Description
The Modular Diagnostics Platform (MDP) is a microwave-based, port-plug–integrated diagnostic system developed by Next Step Fusion that addresses fusion-plant-relevant challenges by minimizing the foot-print, enforcing a standardized and maintainable architecture, and providing all the data required for advanced plasma state reconstruction. The prototype has been designed based on microwave diagnostics. It consists of a multi-channel ECE system and 4 reflectometers. This prototype is under manufacturing and will be tested in the coming months on the TCV and DIII-D tokamaks.
The prototype will demonstrate that a joint microwave transmission line is relevant and efficient in a real-world experiment, will explore the flexibility of the solution during the transfer between TCV and DIII-D, and will be validated against existing diagnostics already installed.
We will present the detailed design of the system-on-chip ECE radiometer able to measure on the 68-110 GHz band, together with the 4 reflectometers operating on the K, Ka, Q and V bands (18-75 GHz) and covering both O-mode and X-mode polarization. The solution for coupling the instruments to the oversized waveguides, the vacuum window design and the in-vessel antennas will be presented as well. The integration into TCV and DIII-D tokamaks will be described with an emphasis on the adaptability of the proposed architecture to diverse hardware environments and measurement conditions, preserving the quality and completeness of the provided plasma parameters, with support for physics-based plasma parameter reconstruction techniques. The data acquisition system based on National Instruments cards, is being built efficiently with all instrument data acquisition, the required arbitrary waveform generators, together with the general control and monitoring system being managed by an universal single controller and integrated into a single PXIe rack. Moreover, the MDP's modular and standardized design inherently improves tolerance to high maintenance demands, enabling rapid component swaps, remote diagnostics, and reduced calibration overhead, which are essential for sustained operation in reactor-grade conditions.