A first approach to runaway electron control in FTU

Abstract The Plasma Control System (PCS) of the Frascati Tokamak Upgrade (FTU) is not equipped with any runaway electron (RE) beam control or suppression tool. In this paper we propose an upgraded {PCS} including an architecture for the control of disruption-generated {REs} that, making use of filtering techniques to estimate the onsets of the current quench (CQ) and of the {RE} beam current plateau, provides a controlled plasma current shut-down and a simultaneous {RE} position control. The control strategy is based on a nonlinear technique, called Input Allocation, that allows to re-configure the current in the poloidal field (PF) coils and improve the {PCS} responsiveness needed for {RE} position control. Preliminary results on the implementation of the Input Allocation and an experimental proposal to test the control scheme architecture are discussed.