The application of Kalman filtering is proposed for the numerical evaluation of plasma density profiles using noisy group delay data obtained from O-mode frequency-modulated broadband reflectometry. This method allows faster computation of the Abel inversion integral than the usual numerical methods (e.g., the trapezoidal rule) while maintaining a good accuracy in the presence of noise. In addition, density profiles with different degrees of smoothing can be produced by adjusting a single parameter. The algorithm seems promising in applications to plasma control in real time.
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