ITER Organization awarded in May 2021 to the consortium formed by Tecnatom and Cosylab the contract for the supply of the simulation platform with which the ITER fusion plant simulator will be developed. Leading simulation companies from ITER member countries participated in the bidding process. The tandem Tecnatom, expert in simulator development and leader of the consortium and Cosylab, expert in the ITER CODAC (Control, Data Access and Communication) system was chosen on the basis of their technical competence and experience in simulation projects.
The simulator: uses and features
The simulator developed with this platform will not only be intended for operator training but will also accompany the design and construction of the facility, providing engineering support to the installation and serving as a tool for the review of operating procedures.
The co-simulation strategy is one of the fundamental enabling technologies for the development of the Digital Twin of complex facilities such as ITER. Thus, the simulator platform will be sufficiently versatile, flexible and modular to integrate third-party models under the FMI co-simulation standard, as well as models developed with Tecnatom’s own simulation technology, TEAM_SUITE. Finally, the simulator will integrate the same CODAC (ITER brain and nervous system) plant control system.
The road travelled
It has been more than a year since the project started with a first pilot case, aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of the technological approach, where different process models were integrated under the FMI co-simulation standard, communicated with logic and control models developed with Tecnatom TEAM_LOGIC simulation technology, and connected in turn with operating screens in the CODAC environment.
In a second stage, ITER technical personnel have been trained in our TEAM_SUITE simulation technology, which will be key in the simulator development process. In this way, the staff has been trained both for the use of the simulator and for the development and integration of simulation models.
In the third phase of the project, among other things, the bases or pillars have been established to develop the models for the logic and control of the entire cryogenic plant. In this sense, with our simulation technology TEAM_LOGIC we have developed the library of all the basic functions that will be used for the construction of the instrumentation and control models of the cryogenic plant.
Next steps
Once the first three phases have been completed, the fourth task order (TO4) is in the process of being launched. This will consist of modeling the instrumentation and control of the cryogenic plant, thanks to the previously developed libraries.
Congratulations to the team for the success in such a challenging and innovative project, we hope to continue contributing value and knowledge to ITER for a long time!
