Networked Control of a Large Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) With Discrete Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) Controllers

Networked control has been attempted for a wide variety of plants using memory-less State Feedback controllers. Networked Control Systems (NCSs) have also been mooted for PHWRs and implemented in practical systems e.g. a Reactor Regulating System (RRS) of the Indian PHWRs. While existing approaches using State Feedback controllers guarantee stability under data loss and variable delay which are inherent in real time communications, they cannot be extended to discrete PID controllers which involve a memory element. In this paper, a switched system formulation has been used to analyze the stability of a nuclear reactor with networked discrete PID controllers in the RRS under specified data loss and variable delay. The results have been verified using MATLAB xPC target based Real-time Simulation involving multiple simulation nodes integrated over switched Ethernet. A Distributed Network Analyzer (DNA) has been used to log actual network traffic to establish the credibility of the assumptions related to data loss and variable delay in communication.