Optical Boundary Reconstruction With Visible Camera in the EXL-50 Spherical Tokamak

Abstract

Plasma position and shape parameters are essential for equilibrium control and physics analysis in a tokamak. Such information is often obtained via optical boundary analysis. In this study, a new analysis of the visible image histogram of a high-speed high-resolution camera is presented which can effectively distinguish between the foreground information (showing the plasma of interest) and the background information (showing the inside views of the vacuum vessel wall and flanges, and so on). Using this method, we can obtain a reasonable approximation to the plasma boundary close to the last closed flux surface (LCFS) where plasma brightness contrast is greatest. The reliability and accuracy of this method are checked by comparing it favorably with other algorithms for different plasma shapes. The method is successfully tested also when the outboard plasma boundary oscillates in time with a magnitude of 10%.