Review of tokamak codes

The current worldwide increasing demand of energy has pointed out the need to develop new sources of power. Nuclear fusion has turned out to be a promising source of this power which has lead to an increasing interest in finding solutions for the different tokamak control problems. In order to find suitable controllers, several kind of models have been developed and studied. In this paper, some of the most relevant models and simulation codes are presented with the purpose of providing a state of the art review of the techniques that are nowadays being used in tokamak control. First of all, a summary of the necessary background to deal with control problems in tokamaks is given. With this aim, an introduction to nuclear fusion and tokamak reactors is provided followed by a description of the dynamics of a tokamak. Then, the current control problems present in tokamaks are summarized and briefly described. And finally the diverse models and codes used in the design of controllers are explained.