Design And Verification Of FPGA-Based Nuclear Power Plant Instrumentation And Control System

FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) is one of the best alternatives of the new-generation nuclear power plant safety-class I&C (Instrumentation and Control) system. FPGAs have some superiority beyond the microprocessors and software systems, however, as a new technology in the area of nuclear power industry, the applicability, reliability and license of FPGAs may have some uncertainties.In this paper, the standards which FPGA-based applications used in the nuclear power plant I&C system should comply with have been analyzed. Based on the HFC-6000platform, which is licensed by NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), the TMR (Triple Modular Redundant) Demo application system program on HFC-6000system is transplanted into FPGA according to the development lifecycle for FPGA-based I&C system, in addition, the functions of DG (Diesel Generator) load sequencer and BOP ESFAS (Balance Of Plant Engineering Safety Feature Actuation System) have been achieved. In order to deeply comprehend system requirements and control logic, the graphical language LabVIEW is used to develop TMR Demo system; a FPGA-based TMR Demo program is developed with schematic on the Quartus II EDA (Electronic Design Automation), the FPGA TMR Demo system is designed, then the correctness of function and timing on it is simulated and verified; at last, system test platform is construct by using NI PXI virtual instrument platform, and it is linked with FPGA TMR Demo application system to make the FPGA TMR Demo system tested.The standards relevant to the design of FPGA-based nuclear power plant I&C system is not yet complete. By conducting the FPGA nuclear power plant I&C system practice, some research on development design and V&V (Verification and Validation) method of FPGA-based nuclear power plant I&C system is done, the standards relevant to the design and V&V of the FPGA-based I&C system can be understood better and the method to replace the existing nuclear power plant protection system with FPGA can be obtained, the exploration and basic research for the applications and V&V activities of the FPGA-based nuclear power plant I&C system are carried out.