Overview of KSTAR

The recent progress of the KSTAR program is summarized. First of all, continuous effort has been made to develop new advanced scenarios targeting steady-state operation with high beta sustainment which includes development of the hybrid and high li-mode aided with control-oriented modeling on transport. In addition, the stationary internal transport barrier is successfully reproduced with comparable confinement as H-mode in high power neutral beam injection with I-mode like edge configuration and the technical issues are identified for long-pulse sustainment of the advanced scenarios. Recent experiments on resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) have focused on the controllability of ELMs in real-time, such as suppression of the first ELM right after H-mode access with real-time controller, the adaptive control of ELM suppression with minimum confinement loss from RMP application, and the effect of up-down asymmetry of the applied RMP on ELM suppression window which are facilitated with the new control algorithm based on the Machine Learning (ML). Turbulence in pedestal is further investigated for its role of the ELM suppression and the correlation of edge turbulence with RMP hysteresis and ion pedestal broadening are also investigated. In addition, stochastic fluctuation and its impact on the transport in the edge region is also identified with a detailed analysis of ECEI diagnostic data. Together with the experimental validation of the multiple Shattered Pellet Injections (SPIs), an innovative model of the disruption event is developed for characterization and forecasting based on the real-time application of plasma control system and diagnostics.