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Modern High-Performance Electronic Systems for Advanced Energy Projects and Large-Scale Research Infrastructures

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "F3: Power Electronics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 October 2026 | Viewed by 2179

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Andrzej Wojeński

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Electronic Systems, Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology, Warsaw University of Technology, Nowowiejska 15/19, 00-650 Warsaw, Poland
Interests: FPGAs; control system; diagnostic systems; high-performance computing; multichannel modular systems; HDL; plasma diagnostics; GEM detectors; soft X-ray diagnostics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

One present-day challenge is sustaining growing energy consumption. Efficient power production technologies are a potential solution to this issue. These require using the most recent achievements from various science branches such as materials, physics, chemistry, or electronics, often with large-scale research infrastructures. Such results are later combined directly with the industrial sector, including energy projects, ensuring the technological progress of energy production.

Electronic systems are present almost everywhere, performing various tasks, e.g., control, diagnostics, analysis, or protection. Due to modern high-density integrated circuits, it is possible to design devices that perform multiple simultaneous tasks, offer many processing channels, or work as numerical accelerators. Most recent FPGAs and GPUs provide the very high performance required for advanced research and applications.

These systems are commonly used in modern large-scale experimental infrastructures focused on fundamental research such as high-energy physics. These include fusion experiments, considered to be a new potential efficient energy source. However, in parallel, they are challenging, as they require constructing complex measurement or control systems. Fission research requires modern equipment and high-performance computing systems for process improvements or other research.

This Special Issue will present the most recent achievements in complex electronic systems related to concepts, modelling, design, installations, control, monitoring, and diagnostics for advanced energy projects and large-scale research infrastructures.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • System concepts and prototypes for application in HEP experiments and energy technologies;
  • System’s design methodology;
  • Numerical complex modelling and high-performance analysis;
  • Control-protection systems used in power-electronic systems or HEP experiments;
  • Novel diagnostic systems for HEP and energy research;
  • Real-time protection and computation systems;
  • Modern complex industrial systems;
  • High-tech systems applicable in the field of energy and industrial sectors.

Dr. Andrzej Wojeński
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • control systems
  • diagnostic systems
  • FPGAs
  • power plants
  • fusion energy
  • fission energy
  • tokamaks
  • stellarators
  • energy systems
  • high-energy physics
  • high-performance computations
  • distributed systems
  • protection systems
  • electronics
  • physics modelling
  • real-time feedback systems
  • protection systems
  • modelling
  • numerical analysis

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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20 pages, 1420 KB  
Article
High-Level Synthesis (HLS)-Enabled Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) Algorithms for Latency-Critical Plasma Diagnostics and Neural Trigger Prototyping in Next-Generation Energy Projects
by Radosław Cieszewski, Krzysztof Poźniak, Ryszard Romaniuk and Maciej Linczuk
Energies 2026, 19(4), 1091; https://doi.org/10.3390/en19041091 - 21 Feb 2026
Viewed by 890
Abstract
Large-scale advanced energy systems, including fusion devices, high-power plasma sources, and accelerator-driven energy platforms, increasingly depend on real-time, hardware-level data processing for diagnostics, control, and protection. In such installations, ultra-low latency, deterministic throughput, and multi-decade operational lifetimes are not optional design goals but [...] Read more.
Large-scale advanced energy systems, including fusion devices, high-power plasma sources, and accelerator-driven energy platforms, increasingly depend on real-time, hardware-level data processing for diagnostics, control, and protection. In such installations, ultra-low latency, deterministic throughput, and multi-decade operational lifetimes are not optional design goals but strict system-level requirements. While similar timing constraints exist in high-energy physics infrastructures, energy applications place a stronger emphasis on long-term stability, maintainability, and reproducibility of digital signal processing pipelines. This work investigates whether high-level synthesis (HLS) provides a practical and sustainable design methodology for implementing both classical pattern-based and compact neural network (NN) trigger logic on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) under realistic energy-system constraints. Using representative commercial toolchains (Intel HLS and hls4ml) as reference workflows, we demonstrate the capabilities of fixed-point, fully pipelined streaming architectures, while also identifying critical shortcomings of pragma-driven HLS approaches in terms of architecture transparency, long-term portability, and systematic multi-objective design-space exploration, all of which are crucial for long-lived energy projects and plasma diagnostic systems. These limitations directly motivate the development of a custom, vendor-agnostic, extensible HLS framework (PyHLS), specifically oriented toward deterministic latency, reproducibility, and physics-grade verification demands of advanced energy infrastructures. Gas Electron Multipliers (GEMs) are modern gaseous detectors increasingly employed in plasma diagnostics, radiation monitoring, and high-power energy experiments, where high rate capability, fine spatial resolution, and radiation tolerance are required. Their massively parallel signal structure and continuous data streams make GEMs a representative and demanding benchmark for FPGA-based real-time trigger and preprocessing systems in energy-related environments. The primary objective of this study is to establish a pragmatic technological baseline, demonstrating that contemporary HLS workflows can reliably support both template-based and neural inference-based trigger architectures within strict timing, resource, and power constraints typical for advanced energy installations. Furthermore, we outline a scalable development path toward multi-channel and two-dimensional (pixelated) GEM readout architectures, directly applicable to fusion diagnostics, plasma accelerators, beam–plasma interaction studies, and radiation-hard energy monitoring platforms. Although the proposed methodology remains fully transferable to large-scale physics trigger systems, its principal relevance is directed toward real-time diagnostics and protection layers in next-generation energy systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modern High-Performance Electronic Systems for Advanced Energy Projects and Large-Scale Research Infrastructures)
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41 pages, 7256 KB  
Article
GEM3k: Architecture and Design of a Novel 3rd Generation High Channel Density Soft X-Ray Diagnostic System Towards Commercial Fusion Power Plants
by Andrzej Wojeński, Grzegorz Kasprowicz and Maryna Chernyshova
Energies 2026, 19(4), 918; https://doi.org/10.3390/en19040918 - 10 Feb 2026
Viewed by 754
Abstract
Achieving reliable, grid-scale electricity generation from nuclear fusion, as envisioned by the DEMOnstration Fusion Power Plant (DEMO) and future commercial reactors, requires unprecedented plasma stability and long-term control. This operational goal is fundamentally challenged by, among others, the dynamic nature of the high [...] Read more.
Achieving reliable, grid-scale electricity generation from nuclear fusion, as envisioned by the DEMOnstration Fusion Power Plant (DEMO) and future commercial reactors, requires unprecedented plasma stability and long-term control. This operational goal is fundamentally challenged by, among others, the dynamic nature of the high temperature plasma and the need to monitor high-Z impurities, such as tungsten, which can severely compromise energy confinement, resulting in discharge disruption and damage to internal reactor walls. Real-time Soft X-ray (SXR) diagnostic systems are therefore an integral and critical component of fusion power plant infrastructure, providing essential temporal and spatial resolution data on these fast-evolving phenomena. To address the severe demands imposed by the extreme operating environment of future fusion reactors, such as DEMO (including intense neutron and gamma fluxes), this work details a current stage in the long-term development of an advanced and robust diagnostic system engineered specifically for technological preparation and future application in these high-fluence environments. This paper presents the third generation of the SXR measurement system, GEM3k, based on Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) technology. This novel diagnostic utilizes a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based architecture, specifically designed for the high-rate acquisition of energy- and spatially resolved plasma radiation distributions. The GEM3k design exploits the inherent radiation hardness of GEM detectors, positioning them as robust sensor units for monitoring plasma dynamics and impurity emissions in future fusion environments. The system readout comprises approximately 34,000 individual pixels mapped to nearly 3000 measurement channels in an XYUV coordinate configuration. This layout enables submillimeter spatial resolution simultaneously with a time resolution better than 10 ms. Addressing the engineering challenges of such a complex high-density readout, this work details the comprehensive design of the GEM3k system, focusing on its architecture, electronics, performance estimations, and data distribution strategies. By enabling precise tracking of impurities and fast plasma behavior, the GEM3k system contributes to the stable, high-gain operation required for future fusion reactors. This directly supports the development of sustainable fusion energy and its eventual integration into modern electricity grids. Furthermore, the planned enhancement to a real-time operating mode could pave a way for a next-generation system for direct integration into reactor control loops. Currently in the prototype phase with initial hardware tests completed, the GEM3k design leverages our extensive experience with diagnostics developed for the JET and WEST tokamaks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Modern High-Performance Electronic Systems for Advanced Energy Projects and Large-Scale Research Infrastructures)
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