Combined distributed parameters and source estimation in tokamak plasma heat transport

Abstract

We investigate the joint estimation of time and space distributed parameters and input in the tokamak heat transport equation. This physical phenomenon can be modelled by a non-homogeneous linear parabolic partial differential equation (PDE). The analysis of this PDE is achieved in a finite dimensional framework using the cubic b-splines finite element method. The application of the parameter projection method results in a linear time-varying state-space model with unknown parameters and inputs. The DAISYS method proves the structural identifiability of the model and the EKF-UI-WDF estimates simultaneously the states, parameters and inputs. This methodology is applied on the tokamak plasma heat transport equation in order to reconstruct simultaneously its coefficients and its source term. Computer simulations on both mock-up and real data show the performance of the proposed technique.