Safety Assessment and Risk-informed Design of Networked Control Systems

控制系统的老化和陈旧已成为包括核电站在内的多个行业日益严重的问题。然而，公用事业和监管机构都对现有工程系统的任何改变持健康的怀疑态度，如果有一点不确定，即新技术可能危及公共安全。同时，控制领域的技术进步使现代控制系统，如网络控制系统（NCS）的出现成为可能。这些系统在许多方面都有优势，例如更灵活和更少的维护。然而，可靠性和安全性问题必须得到充分解决，然后才能采用它们来改造现有系统。新设计的控制系统也需要支持下一代核电站和其他行业。缺乏系统的NCS可靠性和安全性评估程序，以及基于安全见解（风险知情设计）的系统设计，为该研究项目开辟了一个独特的角度。有三个短期目标：1)为NCS制定全面的可靠性和安全性建模策略，特别是在安全关键应用中；2)根据新开发的模型进行可靠性和安全性评估，提取风险相关信息；3)基于可靠性和安全性评估的基准NCS的风险知情设计。未来五年的长期目标包括：1)为下一代控制系统的开发和鉴定做出贡献；2)为控制系统安全评估领域的决策监管机构提供技术投入。本研究项目将建立一个由1名本科生助理、2名硕士生和2名博士生组成的研究团队。预计他们将在维持NCS安全评估和风险知情设计的未来发展方面发挥重要作用。

Aging and obsolescence of control systems have emerged as a more and more serious problem in multiple industries, including Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). However, both the utilities and regulatory agencies maintain healthy skepticism on any changes of existing engineering systems, if there is a slight uncertainty that the new technology might endanger public safety. Meanwhile, technology advancement in the control field has enabled the emergence of modern control systems, such as Networked Control Systems (NCS). These systems are advantageous in many aspects, such as more flexibility and less maintenance. However, reliability and safety issues have to be adequately addressed before they can be adopted to retrofit existing systems. New design of control systems are also needed to support next generation NPP and other industries. Lack of a systematic reliability and safety assessment program for NCS and design of such systems based on safety insights (risk-informed design) open a unique angle for this research program. There are three short-term objectives: 1) Develop a comprehensive reliability and safety modeling strategy for NCS, especially in safety-critical applications; 2) Perform reliability and safety assessment based on the newly-developed model to extract risk-related information; and 3) Risk-informed design of a benchmark NCS based on insights from the reliability and safety assessment. The long-term objectives beyond the next five years include: 1) Contribute to the development and qualification of next-generation control systems; and 2) Provide technical inputs to policy-making regulatory bodies in the area of control system safety assessment. A research team that encompasses one undergraduate research assistant, two Master students and two Ph.D. students will be established through this research program. They are expected to play a major role in sustaining future development on safety assessment and risk-informed design of NCS.