Deterministic real-time PCS implementation

Demonstrate real-time implementation of the ARC V3A growth-rate controller on plasma-control-system hardware with deterministic timing guarantees.

Background

The controller has been evaluated only in offline simulations, although its surrogate inference and optimization steps are intended for millisecond-scale operation. Hardware execution may introduce computational, communication, and scheduling constraints that are not captured by the simulations.

References

The principal open questions are robustness to diagnostic noise and reconstruction errors, systematic characterization of surrogate gradient accuracy, generalization of the surrogate beyond the training distribution, real-time implementation on PCS hardware with deterministic timing guarantees, and design of a fallback hierarchy for safe degradation.

— On the feasibility of model-based feedback control of vertical instability growth rate using out-vessel coils in ARC-like scenarios  (2608.22677 - Kumar et al., 24 Aug 2026) in Section 6, Conclusions