Domenica Corona successfully defends PhD thesis
Domenica Corona defended her PhD thesis last January 26 and was awarded the grade Pass with Distinction (Lisbon) and Pass with Distinction and Excellence (Padua). She was awarded a double mark due to her dual-degree granted by the universities of Lisbon and Padua (Italy), effectively making her a 'European Doctor”. The research work was conducted in the scope of a Joint Doctorate of the two higher education institutions through a specific agreement.
Domenica joined the APPLAuSE doctoral program on Plasma Science and Engineering in 2016 and fulfilled the requirements for the Joint Research Doctorate in Fusion Science and Engineering. She joined IPFN for her thesis under the supervision of Prof. Horácio Fernandes, Prof. Alfredo Pironti (UNINA) and Dr. Nuno Cruz.
During her PhD, Domenica worked at the ISTTOK tokamak, in addition to the research work carried out at the CREATE consortium in Italy, the leading European institution on tokamak real-time control and plasma shaping. At UNINA she tested under a given plasma scenario the controllers for the plasma shape and current profile for JT-60SA, which also includes the description of the tokamak first wall, definition of geometric descriptors and generation of state-space linear models.
During the carried out work at ISTTOK, the acquisition and correction of the numerically hardware integrated magnetic probes signals were fully developed. Afterwards, using data-driven models, the plasma current magnetic field contribution was subtracted from the signals in order to reconstruct the plasma centroid position by means of a multi-filament model.
These elements made possible the integration of a new real-time control based on an optimal LQR approach for the plasma centroid position.
