The paper is devoted to the survey of the results in the area of high temperature plasma control in tokamaks obtained by the specialists of the V.A. Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences in collaboration with the Kurchatov Institute (Moscow), TRINITI (Troitsk), Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, Efremov Institute (St. Petersburg). Plasma in magnetic field is a complex multivariable dy-namical plant with distributed parameters and requires application of nonstandard control methods and systems. The survey shows that to deal with the plasma control problem a systemic approach has been applied which includes the whole arsenal of control methodologies: control algorithms, linearization, reduction, and identification procedures. A basic design line is related to hierarchical systems which have combinations of different control algorithms applied at different system layers to achieve high precision and reliability of system operation. The plasma behaviors in the feedback loops are investigated in different conditions and at different statements of control problems for plasma magnetic and kinetic control systems. Future work is needed to apply the methodologies developed to operating and being constructed tokamaks.
