ITER Ion Cyclotron System: Overview and Plans

The ITER ion cyclotron (IC) system is required to deliver 20 MW of RF power to the plasma for a pulse length of up to 1000 s. The system must operate over the 40- to 55-MHz frequency range, and deliver the power to the plasma over a range of plasma conditions, including ELMy H-mode operation that will cause significant transient changes in the loading of the antenna by the plasma. In addition, it must be reliable and survive in the ITER environment. The components of the ITER IC system are being designed and built by several of the ITER Participants: the antenna will be built by the EU, the RF sources and power supplies will be built by India, and the transmission line/matching system will be built by the US. A coordinated plan for design of the complete system is underway. A critical question concerns the design of the IC antenna, which must fit into a single midplane port in ITER. There are two conceptual designs for the antenna being carried out as ITER Task Agreements by members of the EU Participant Team; a choice between these designs will be made in 2007. The antenna design will also affect the design of the matching system and the RF sources, so an evaluation of the entire system will be needed to make the best choice. For that reason, the Indian and US teams are carrying out studies of their sub-systems in parallel with the antenna design work. This paper will present an overview of the status of the design and R(and)D efforts, the criteria to be used in the selection process, and the schedule for the design, R(and)D, fabrication, and testing needed to deliver the IC system components to ITER. Details of the design status will be presented in papers by members of the Participant Teams working on the subsystems. (author)