ITER ion cyclotron system: Overview and plans

The ITER ion cyclotron (IC) system is required to deliver 20 MW of rf power to the plasma for a pulse length of up to 1000 s. The system must operate over the 40–55-MHz frequency range, and deliver the power to the plasma over a range of plasma conditions, including ELMy H-mode operation that will cause significant transient changes in the loading of the antenna by the plasma. In addition, it must be reliable and survive in the ITER environment. This paper is an overview of the status of the design, the R&D effort, and the schedule to deliver the IC system components to ITER. Details of the design are in accompanying papers by members of the Participant Teams working on the subsystems.