The actuator based on a single-phase thyristor current inverter (CI) for fast plasma position control systems in
tokamaks is described. It has been successfully applied in the operating Globus-M/M2 (Ioffe Institute, SPetersburg,
Russia) and T-11M (TRINITI, Troitsk, Russia) tokamaks for plasma position control. The mode of
operation for the CI, allowing to control the current value in an inductive load, is described. The control algorithm
for the CI, forming the average (on a period of self-oscillations) output voltage, proportional to the value
of the input control signal at minimal amplitude of the voltage self-oscillations, is designed. The initial phase of
the CI operation (current increasing through the inductive energy storage and the CI starting up into the selfoscillating
mode of operation) is described. The autonomous protection elements for the CI are presented. The
application results from the present tokamaks have demonstrated the reliability of the designed control algorithm
and the declared quality of the CI operation reaching. The linear identification performed defines the
linear CI's model for linear control system synthesis showing the dynamical properties of the CI in terms of the
linear system analysis.