R. Sabjan
Cosylab,
Slovenia
Keywords: control system, R&D, schedule, risks
Summary:
Fusion energy projects are today very much experiments and far from being a mature industry. This is reflected also in the control system, a central and essential part of plant's integration and operation that is critical for project's success. We saw very many scientific projects that did not seriously consider the control system early enough and/or treated it as an R&D project, often wanting to develop everything from scratch, which introduces many risks due to complexity and performance requirements. Fusion power plants are closer each year and why not learn from others' mistakes. This talk advocates for rethinking control system development as one of core components of fusion projects, moving away from bespoke, in-house, developed-as-we-go solutions towards collaborative partnerships with specialized suppliers focusing on more standard and industrial solutions to facilitate early prototyping, cost savings, reduction of schedule risks and avoidance of technical debt for future maintenance and upgrades. By leveraging a focus on systems engineering, sound architecture and standardized components, the overall risks that control system presents to the fusion project are significantly reduced.