Development of Testing Platform for Digital I and C System in Nuclear Power Plants

According to digitalization of the NPP (Nuclear Power Plant) I and C (Instrumentation and Control) system, cyber threats against I and C system are increased. Moreover, the complexity of I and C system are increased due to adopt the up-to-date technologies (i. e., smart sensor, wireless network, and Field Programmable Gate Array / Complex Programmable Logic Device) into NPP's I and C system. For example, new issues such as cyber threat are introduced from digitalized I and C systems and components to replace obsolete analog equipment in existing NPPs. Furthermore, use of wireless communication, FPGA/CPLD, and smart sensor could introduce new considerations such as Defense-in-Depth and Diversity. Therefore, the proof testing for digital I and C system is required to verify the adverse effect from use of up-to-date digital technologies and identify the criteria to resolve and mitigate (or prevent) the (possibility of) effects. The objective of this study is developing the Testing Platform for the proof testing. The digital I and C System Test Platform is implemented using test platform hardware, component software, and architectural design. The digital I and C testing platform includes the safety-related PLC and relevant ladder logics, Windows-based C++ codes for host PC. For software, there are seven spike models to confirm the each module's functionality and generate/monitor the signals to/from PLCs. For future work, digital I and C System Test Platform architecture will be implemented using spike models. And a set of acceptance test against cyber security, smart sensor, wireless network, and FPGA/CPLD will be conducted using digital I and C System Test Platform