Fusion Futures: Uncertainty Quantification for Plasma Control Frameworks

Tender description

UKAEA wishes to engage with potential prime contractors, for the provision of research and development consultancy services to the UKAEA. The project seeks to apply state of the art methods and techniques from the field of uncertainty quantification to the development of real-time plasma control systems. The goal is to develop specific software components which must integrate effectively with existing control frameworks developed in C++. There is some flexibility in exactly how the new capabilities should be interfaced but the resulting system is required to have highly deterministic behaviour with bounded latency and jitter suitable for deployment in the plasma control environment. Lot 1: UKAEA wishes to engage with potential prime contractors, for the provision of research and development consultancy services to the UKAEA. The project seeks to apply state of the art methods and techniques from the field of uncertainty quantification to the development of real-time plasma control systems. The goal is to develop specific software components which must integrate effectively with existing control frameworks developed in C++. There is some flexibility in exactly how the new capabilities should be interfaced but the resulting system is required to have highly deterministic behaviour with bounded latency and jitter suitable for deployment in the plasma control environment. The focus is on developing practical components using agile methodology and able to deliver production software quickly. As such, the requirement is to identify potential suppliers capable of demonstrating not only competencies in the specified fields, but experience of deploying solutions in demanding environments. Ideally this would include awareness or experience in fusion control. Equivalent alternative domain knowledge and appropriate subject matter expertise would be considered. UKAEA will be able to provide support on many aspects of plasma control and on the software frameworks used in fusion. A potential supplier must bring expertise in uncertainty quantification and have sufficient complementary skills to be able to effectively engage with the UKAEA controls team. After the engagement exercise, UKAEA intend to issue an Invitation to Tender through the EU Supply and Find a Tender portals (replacement to Tenders Electronic Daily) to procure services for design and development through competitively tendered contracts.