Chatwood Labs Integrates Live Telemetry Into BOUT++ Simulation Environment
New live diagnostics infrastructure enables real-time monitoring of plasma dynamics, crest propagation, and control-relevant behaviour during active simulation runs.
Chatwood Labs has integrated a live telemetry system into its BOUT++ simulation environment, enabling plasma behaviour to be monitored in real time during simulation runs rather than only through post-processing after completion.
Post-processing remains one of the major bottlenecks in many fusion simulation workflows. A run completes, output files are written, analysis tools are applied, and only then does a researcher discover whether the physics behaved as expected, whether a grid issue distorted the result, or whether a boundary condition was incorrectly specified. In a research programme built around rapid iteration and control-first simulation development, that delay limits both speed and insight.
The telemetry system was built to close that gap. Diagnostic data now streams directly from the running simulation into a live monitoring environment, providing visibility into evolving plasma behaviour while the run is still in progress.
The live platform supports monitoring of three-dimensional temperature and density structure, burn crest position and propagation velocity, fusion power and alpha-heating behaviour, injector status and wake-alignment metrics, plasma-state diagnostics including energy balance and closure behaviour, and wave-structure signatures relevant to phase-alignment analysis.
The initial validation case used to commission the system tracked a diagnostic temperature perturbation propagating around a toroidal domain. The test was deliberately simple. Its purpose was to verify Z-periodicity, grid consistency, and boundary behaviour before more complex physics models and control logic were layered on top. Catching a geometry or boundary issue at this stage takes seconds. Finding the same issue after a long production run is far more costly.
The same telemetry infrastructure now supports live monitoring of burn-wave dynamics and crest tracking during full WAFI simulation work. That capability is central to the control-first development approach at Chatwood Labs, where the simulation environment and the control system are developed in parallel rather than sequentially.
By observing crest propagation and plasma response in real time, simulation runs can be assessed with far greater immediacy, and follow-on control adjustments can be informed by observed behaviour rather than delayed post-processed summaries alone.
Based in Greater Manchester, Chatwood Labs is continuing to build its simulation, diagnostics, and control infrastructure as its Phase 2 BOUT++ validation programme progresses through 2026.