Future Direction of the Instrumentation and Control System for Security of Nuclear Facilities

Instrumentation and control (I&C) systems are pervasively used as a vital component in modern industries. Nuclear facilities, such as nuclear power plants (NPPs), originally use I&C systems for plant status monitoring, processes control, and many other purposes. After some events that raised security concerns, application areas of I&C systems have been expanded to physical protection of nuclear material and facilities. So, I&C systems for safety and security in NPPs were compared and identified. There were similar and different characteristics between them. Then, major issues in general I&C systems are summarized into two aspects. The first aspect is the enhancements of I&C technology for accomplishing high efficiency and performance of the power system. The second aspect is the functional safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable-Electronic(E/E/PE) in safety critical systems. Finally, the future direction of I&C systems for security is described according to the two aspects. Korea Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control (KINAC) established “International Nuclear Nonproliferation and Security Academy, INSA” in 2014. One of the main achievements of INSA is a test-bed implementation for technical criteria development of nuclear facilities’ physical protection systems (PPSs) as well as for education & training of those systems. The test- bed have modified and improved more suitably including state-of-the-art I&C technologies