Federico Felici
EPFL SB SPC-TCV
PPB 220 (Bâtiment PPB)
Station 13
CH-1015 Lausanne
Web site: Web site: https://spc.epfl.ch/
Fields of expertise
Control of nuclear fusion reactors
Nuclear fusion/plasma physics:
Tokamak scenarios and their control, current drive, profile control. Control of MHD instabilities, magnetic control of plasma equilibrium. Simulation of plasma core profile evolution, free-boundary equilibrium simulation and reconstruction. Real-time simulation and prediction.
Control science:
Control theory, feedback control design, observer design, (Kalman) filtering, nonlinear optimization, model-based predictive control, iterative learning control, machine-learning approaches to control. Implementation of control systems, real-time coding.
Nuclear fusion/plasma physics:
Tokamak scenarios and their control, current drive, profile control. Control of MHD instabilities, magnetic control of plasma equilibrium. Simulation of plasma core profile evolution, free-boundary equilibrium simulation and reconstruction. Real-time simulation and prediction.
Control science:
Control theory, feedback control design, observer design, (Kalman) filtering, nonlinear optimization, model-based predictive control, iterative learning control, machine-learning approaches to control. Implementation of control systems, real-time coding.
Biography
Federico Felici obtained his MSc degree cum laude in Systems & Control from TU Delft (The Netherlands) in 2005 and his PhD. studies at the Swiss Plasma Center at EPFL, Switzerland in 2011. His PhD thesis focused on controlling diverse aspects of fusion plasmas using physics-based modelling approaches. As part of his thesis, he worked on control of MHD instabilities on the TCV tokamak and wrote the fast control-oriented RAPTOR code for solving plasma transport equations. His PhD thesis (available online) was awarded the EPFL doctorate award.In 2012 he moved to TU Eindhoven in The Nederlands as a postdoctoral researcher, where he was appointed as tenure track assistant professor in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Control Systems Technology group in 2014. He continued working on applications of control science to nuclear fusion, collaborating in particular with the ASDEX-Upgrade tokamak at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, Germany.
In 2018, he returned to EPFL as a research scientist. Here he leads research activities on advanced plasma control and supervises a number of PhD students. Among other projects, he co-leads a collaboration between EPFL and Google DeepMind on plasma control using reinforcement learning.
His current research interests include all aspects of tokamak plasma control, with a strong focus on model-based approaches for practical implementation and demonstrations on existing and future devices. Also, he is the main developer of the RAPTOR code as well as a co-developer of the MEQ equilibrium code suite.
Currently he is one of the EU representative to the ITPA, a member of the ITER Scientist Fellow Network in the area of control, Scientific Coordinator of EUROFusion experiments on TCV and ASDEX-Upgrade. He has published in the key journals in the field and given invited talks at major plasma physics conferences.
Awards
Personal 3-year research grant from Dutch Research Council for the project "Control of plasma profiles in a fusion reactor"
2013
Publications
Infoscience publications
Infoscience
Real-time implementation of the high-fidelity NBI code RABBIT into the discharge control system of ASDEX Upgrade
Nuclear Fusion. 2023-06-01. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/acc31c.Model-based electron density estimation using multiple diagnostics on TCV
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2023-03-16. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2023.113615.Dynamic pulse scheduling in ASDEX Upgrade: Disruption avoidance and investigation of the H-Mode density limit
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2023-02-13. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2023.113546.Improved Plasma Vertical Position Control on TCV Using Model-Based Optimized Controller Synthesis
Fusion Science And Technology. 2022-06-29. DOI : 10.1080/15361055.2022.2043511.Healing plasma current ramp-up by nitrogen seeding in the full tungsten environment of WEST
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2022-04-01. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ac4b93.Overview of the TCV tokamak experimental programme
Nuclear Fusion. 2022-04-01. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ac369b.Physics-based control of neoclassical tearing modes on TCV
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2022-04-01. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ac48be.Magnetic control of tokamak plasmas through deep reinforcement learning
Nature. 2022-02-16. DOI : 10.1038/s41586-021-04301-9.Developments on actuator management, plasma state reconstruction, and control on ASDEX Upgrade
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2021-10-01. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2021.112563.Kalman filter density reconstruction in ICRH discharges on ASDEX Upgrade
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2021-09-01. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2021.112510.Integrated Real-Time Supervisory Management for Off-Normal-Event Handling and Feedback Control of Tokamak Plasmas
Ieee Transactions On Nuclear Science. 2021-08-01. DOI : 10.1109/TNS.2021.3084410.Development of the RAPTOR suite of codes towards real-time reconstruction of JET discharges
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2021-08-01. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2021.112431.Rapid optimization of stationary tokamak plasmas in RAPTOR: demonstration for the ITER hybrid scenario with neural network surrogate transport model QLKNN
Nuclear Fusion. 2021-08-01. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ac0d12.Real-time feedback control of the impurity emission front in tokamak divertor plasmas
Nature Communications. 2021-02-17. DOI : 10.1038/s41467-021-21268-3.Use of virtual actuators in ASDEX Upgrade control
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2020-10-01. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2020.111735.Correcting for non-periodic behaviour in perturbative experiments: application to heat pulse propagation and modulated gas-puff experiments
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2020-09-01. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ab9eaa.First demonstration of real-time kinetic equilibrium reconstruction on TCV by coupling LIUQE and RAPTOR
Nuclear Fusion. 2020-06-01. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ab81ac.Classification of tokamak plasma confinement states with convolutional recurrent neural networks
Nuclear Fusion. 2020-03-01. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ab6c7a.Fast modeling of turbulent transport in fusion plasmas using neural networks
Physics of Plasmas. 2020-02-01. DOI : 10.1063/1.5134126.On the triggerless onset of 2/1 neoclassical tearing modes in TCV
Nuclear Fusion. 2019-12-16. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ab56c5.Model-based real-time plasma electron density profile estimation and control on ASDEX Upgrade and TCV
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2019-10-01. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2019.05.030.Tokamak-agnostic actuator management for multi-task integrated control with application to TCV and ITER
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2019-10-01. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2019.111260.New capabilities of the incoherent Thomson scattering diagnostics in the TCV tokamak: divertor and real-time measurements
Journal Of Instrumentation. 2019-09-01. DOI : 10.1088/1748-0221/14/09/C09013.On benchmarking of simulations of particle transport in ITER
Nuclear Fusion. 2019-07-01. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ab15e0.Control of NTMs and integrated multi-actuator plasma control on TCV
Nuclear Fusion. 2019-06-11. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ab1e1e.Real time magnetic control of the snowflake plasma configuration in the TCV tokamak
Nuclear Fusion. 2019. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ab4440.Optimal MSE polarisation angle and q-profile estimation using Kalman filters and the plasma simulator RAPTOR
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 2019. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/aaf7ed.Real-time plasma state monitoring and supervisory control on TCV
Nuclear Fusion. 2019. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aaf451.Feedback controlled, reactor relevant, high-density, high-confinement scenarios at ASDEX Upgrade
Nuclear Fusion. 2018. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aaa339.RABBIT: Real-time simulation of the NBI fast-ion distribution
Nuclear Fusion. 2018. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aabf0f.Density control in ITER: an iterative learning control and robust control approach
Nuclear Fusion. 2018. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aa95ce.Control-oriented modeling of the plasma particle density in tokamaks and application to real-time density profile reconstruction
Fusion Engineering and Design. 2018. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2017.11.006.TORBEAM 2.0, a paraxial beam tracing code for electron-cyclotron beams in fusion plasmas for extended physics applications
COMPUTER PHYSICS COMMUNICATIONS. 2018. DOI : 10.1016/j.cpc.2017.12.018.Real-time-capable prediction of temperature and density profiles in a tokamak using RAPTOR and a first-principle-based transport model
Nuclear Fusion. 2018. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aac8f0.Experimental validation of a Lyapunov-based controller for the plasma safety factor and plasma pressure in the TCV tokamak
Nuclear Fusion. 2018. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aab16a.Profile control simulations and experiments on TCV: a controller test environment and results using a model-based predictive controller
Nuclear Fusion. 2017. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aa8c48.Simulation of profile evolution from ramp-up to ramp-down and optimization of tokamak plasma termination with the RAPTOR code
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2017. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/aa857e.A novel plasma position and shape controller for advanced configuration development on the TCV tokamak
Nuclear Fusion. 2017. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aa7f4d.Distributed digital real-time control system for the TCV tokamak and its applications
Nuclear Fusion. 2017. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aa6120.Modeling of neoclassical tearing mode stabilization by electron cyclotron heating and current drive in tokamak plasmas
Current Applied Physics. 2016. DOI : 10.1016/j.cap.2016.04.015.Study of chi(cJ) decaying into phi K*(892)(K)over-bar
Physical Review D. 2015. DOI : 10.1103/PhysRevD.91.112008.Novel aspects of plasma control in ITER
Physics Of Plasmas. 2015. DOI : 10.1063/1.4907901.Tokamak equilibrium reconstruction code LIUQE and its real time implementation
Fusion Engineering and Design. 2015. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2014.09.019.Classification of selectively constrained DNA elements using feature vectors and rule-based classifiers
Genomics. 2014. DOI : 10.1016/j.ygeno.2014.07.004.Distributed digital real-time control system for TCV tokamak
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2014. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2013.11.001.Development of real-time plasma analysis and control algorithms for the TCV tokamak using SIMULINK
Fusion Engineering And Design. 2013. DOI : 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2013.11.010.Real-time control of the period of individual ELMs by EC power on TCV
Nuclear Fusion. 2013. DOI : 10.1088/0029-5515/53/11/113018.Integrated real-time control of MHD instabilities using multi-beam ECRH/ECCD systems on TCV
Nuclear Fusion. 2012. DOI : 10.1088/0029-5515/52/7/074001.Demonstration of sawtooth period locking with power modulation in TCV plasmas
Nuclear Fusion. 2012. DOI : 10.1088/0029-5515/52/6/062002.Edge-localized mode control by electron cyclotron waves in a tokamak plasma
Nuclear Fusion. 2012. DOI : 10.1088/0029-5515/52/3/032004.Development and validation of a tokamak skin effect transformer model
Nuclear Fusion. 2012. DOI : 10.1088/0029-5515/52/2/023019.Non-linear model-based optimization of actuator trajectories for tokamak plasma profile control
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2012. DOI : 10.1088/0741-3335/54/2/025002.Multiple EC power deposition locations tracking by break-in-slope analysis in TCV plasmas
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 2011. DOI : 10.1088/0741-3335/53/11/115005.Using APCS for Plasma Vertical Control at TCV
Ieee Transactions On Nuclear Science. 2011. DOI : 10.1109/TNS.2011.2160203.Real-time physics-model-based simulation of the current density profile in tokamak plasmas
Nuclear Fusion. 2011. DOI : 10.1088/0029-5515/51/8/083052.Sawtooth pacing by real-time auxiliary power control in a tokamak
Physical Review Letters. 2011. DOI : 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.245002.Feedback control of ECRH polarization on LHD
Nuclear Fusion. 2010. DOI : 10.1088/0029-5515/50/10/105003.Real time control of plasmas and ECRH systems on TCV
Nuclear Fusion. 2009. DOI : 10.1088/0029-5515/49/8/085017.Real time control of the sawtooth period using EC launchers
Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion. 2009. DOI : 10.1088/0741-3335/51/5/055010.Real-time feedback control of millimeter-wave polarization for LHD
Review of Scientific Instruments. 2009. DOI : 10.1063/1.3073735.From sawtooth to profile control: developing feedback control using ECRH/ECCD systems on the TCV tokamak
Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion. 2009. DOI : 10.1088/0741-3335/51/12/124041.Snowflake Divertor Plasmas on TCV
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 2008. DOI : 10.1088/0741-3335/51/5/055009.Handling technology of mega-watt millimeter-waves for optimized heating of fusion plasmas
Journal of Microwave Power & Electromagnetic Energy. 2008. DOI : 10.1080/08327823.2008.11688604.Teaching & PhD
PhD Students
Contré Cassandre Ekta, Frank Antonia, Heiss Cosmas Quirin Lorenz, Marchioni Stefano, Pastore Francesco,Past EPFL PhD Students
Carpanese Francesco , Pesamosca Federico , Van Mulders Simon ,Courses
Control and Operation of Tokamaks
This course treats the main issues in operation and control of a tokamak. Control-oriented models are derived and controllers are designed using techniques from modern control theory. Operational limits are discussed as well as state-of-the-art research questions for future reactors.