The ties are close between ITER and its neighbours: thousands of visitors, mostly local residents, are welcomed to the site every year; ITER management meets the local mayors and officials on a regular basis; and the men and women from many horizons who form the "ITER community" are now an integral part of the social, economic and cultural reality of the region.   Whether formal or informal, these ties are essential to the success of the project. ITER needs the support of its neighbours and its neighbours need a clear idea of the complexities, the challenges and the stakes of the ambitious scientific endeavour underway in their backyard.   Every year, the Commission locale d'information (CLI) provides an opportunity to strengthen ties by organizing a public meeting in the neighbouring village of Vinon-sur-Verdon.   On Thursday 24 September, 60 local residents, trade union representatives and community activists gathered in to hear the latest news on project progress and to have the opportunity to have their questions answered by representatives of the ITER Organization, Agence Iter France, and the French administration.   François Gauché, recently appointed head of the ITER Safety Department, presented the fundamentals of fusion physics and the main milestones achieved since the previous CLI meeting in July 2014. The latest facts on economic benefits, contracts and manpower projections were provided by Jérôme Pamela, director of Agence Iter France, and the representative of the French administration, Secretary General for Regional Affairs Thierry Queffelec.   More specific questions on construction site working conditions were addressed by Laurent Schmieder, head of the joint ITER Organization/European Domestic Agency BIPS Project Team (for Buildings, Infrastructure & Power Supplies).   The relationship between a nuclear installation and the surrounding population is not always simple. Beyond the information they provide, such encounters are one of the best ways to build confidence and understanding.

CODAC (Control, Data Access and Communication) is the central, conventional control system responsible for operating the ITER device. It provides the interface "language" for 220 ITER plant instrumentation and control (I&C) systems containing actuators, sensors and all instrumentation and control functions required to measure and control the plasma parameters. Because plant I&C systems are being procured together with the plant systems from the ITER Members, whereas CODAC is implemented by the ITER Central Team, the interface between the central system and the plant system I&Cs must be well defined and strictly adhered to. A uniform, standardized approach to design of plant system controls is also important to reduce overall project manufacturing and maintenance costs. In order to facilitate integration, CODAC has organized plant system I&Cs into groups that represent the functional needs of tokamak operation (as illustrated in the image below, levels 1 and 2). Diagnostics represents about 50 percent of all ITER plant I&Cs. A graph of the ITER Control Breakdown Structure, with diagnostics D1 and D2 on level 2 (yellow) and examples (in green) of the more than 45 individual diagnostic measurement systems at level 3. Pilot projects have allowed the CODAC team to test plant I&C systems based on the ITER CODAC technology both on the ITER site and in the arenas of operating tokamaks worldwide. In 2012, CODAC successfully demonstrated its capability to control fuelling at the Korean tokamak KSTAR and to operate the flywheel generator control system at the Frascati Tokamak Upgrade (FTU) Project in Italy. In addition, the ITER Steady State Electrical Network (SSEN) powering the ITER facility has been monitored by CODAC since September 2011. In the latest practical demonstration, a prototype of a neutron diagnostics plant I&C system was demonstrated to a large group of diagnosticians in the CODAC control room—a specially equipped facility located in the basement of ITER Headquarters. The divertor neutron flux monitor, procured through the Russian Domestic Agency, is a diagnostic that measures the fusion power of the ITER Tokamak. In a close association between the ITER CODAC team and Russian colleagues, the idea was born to convert a diagnostic plant I&C example (created with the objective of simplification, cost reduction, standardization and full integration with ITER control system) into a basic plant I&C of a real diagnostic for evaluation by the Russian Domestic Agency. The control room operator screen for manual operation. The screen is partitioned in sections for configuration, control, status monitoring and measurement of raw and processed data. The design followed the standard system engineering methodology developed for diagnostics and implemented in compliance with the Plant Control Design Handbook (see insert below), utilizing CODAC Core System and CODAC-provided tools and data repositories. The implementation followed extensive testing documented in detailed reports. Before shipping the plant I&C to Russia, a demonstration was made in manual and automated operation to large group of diagnosticians in the CODAC Control Room.  The demonstration proved that complex, and high performance diagnostics can be built in compliance with the ITER Plant Control Design Handbook, while meeting the stringent requirements of the diagnostics. The fusion power measurement is based on fission chambers which produce short electrical pulses where the pulse rate is proportional to the fusion power. To cover the wide dynamic range of more the 6 orders of magnitude and a fast measurement update every millisecond, a complex analysis of millions of data samples are required. The demonstration covered not only the aspects of high performance data processing but also the needs for the execution of elaborated procedures such as various types of calibrations, built-in health management, raw data archiving, and finally the fully automated operation that will be supervised by the central CODAC system. This is the first time diagnostic plant I&C is fully based on the CODAC technology, making use of the latest CODAC features. Plant Control Design Handbook The ITER Plant Control Design Handbook (PCDH) defines standards, specifications and interfaces applicable to ITER plant system instrumentation and control (I&C). These standards are essential for ITER to: • Integrate all plant systems I&C into one integrated control system • Maintain all plant system I&C after delivery acceptance • Contain cost through economies of scale (spare parts, expertise ...) The latest PCDH (version 7) issued in February 2013 is the final version to be used to design and manufacture the production I&C systems for ITER. By publishing a full set of PCDH documentation, together with regular releases of the CODAC Core System software, ITER seeks to involve the control system community in the testing and verification of ITER I&C standards in order to arrive at a modern and robust control system suitable for ITER and for scientific installations around the world. The PCDH consists of a master document and satellite documents. The master document contains principal requirements for ITER plant system I&C; satellite documents  go deeper into the details of various I&C subjects providing recommendations, guidelines and examples on how to apply the PCDH. While the core document is fixed, satellite documents may evolve with time to incorporate the latest project developments or manage obsolescence.

Read an interview with Director Ambrogio Fasoli here. On Tuesday 22 September, the Center for Research in Plasma Physics (CRPP) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne became the Swiss Plasma Center in the presence of officials from the EUROfusion consortium for the development of fusion energy and the Director-General of the ITER Project, Bernard Bigot.   The change of name heralds a new era for the research centre, which hosts the Variable Configuration Tokamak TCV. Following a CHF 10 million grant from the Swiss government, the Center will upgrade its facilities and expand its scope of activities. New experiments will be carried out on the TCV tokamak—particularly in relation to extracting energy and particles from the plasma—and new mechanisms for heating the plasma with microwaves and with the injection of neutral particles may be installed. The Center is also expanding its sector of research to lower density and lower temperature plasmas in order to explore new applications for plasma.   The Center for Research in Plasma Physics (CRPP) became the Swiss Plasma Center on 22 September 2015. TCV is a variable configuration tokamak for the study of differently shaped cross-sections of the plasma. Through its highly specialized capabilities (i.e., plasma shaping, versatile electron cyclotron heating, measurement and control systems) research on TCV supports ITER and also explores the way to a prototype fusion reactor.   Read the full press release in English or French here ("press kit and releases"). The CRPP website has also changed. You can find the Swiss Plasma Center here. Read an interview with Director Ambrogio Fasoli here.

​On 17-18 September, the ITER Organization hosted the annual meeting on intellectual property issues that brings together contact persons and specialists from the ITER Central Team and the seven Domestic Agencies Chaired by the ITER Organization Legal Adviser, the Intellectual Property Contact Persons meeting is the forum for discussions on intellectual property-related issues encountered with suppliers, legal issues related to non-disclosure agreements, the use of the ITER logo, and the utilization of the intellectual property database. The fundamental principles of intellectual property management within the ITER Project are set out in Article 10 of the ITER Agreement: The ITER Organization and the Members shall support the widest appropriate dissemination of information and intellectual property they generate in the ITER Project. The ITER Members benefit from accessing the intellectual property that results from the project through intellectual property provisions included in each contract, in compliance with the ITER Agreement and fully detailed in its annex on information and intellectual property (IIP Annex). The network of Central Team-Domestic Agency contact persons plays a significant role in the implementation of intellectual property provisions in the framework of the project, confirming progress, sharing best practice, and furthering the management of intellectual property issues. -- Akiko Takano, Legal Affairs