ESCRIME: Advanced control for a better safety of reactors

Activities related to the operation and exploitation of nuclear power plants can influence their safety. Probabilistic estimations show the impact of human factors on safety during operation and maintenance works. From this observation, it is tempting to minimize the human intervention during operation and on the contrary to give more weight to automation and robotization. However, such changes would not suppress the human errors but would reduce the human intervention possibilities for the treatment of unpredictable and critic situations due to the increasing complexity of automatisms. The aim of the CEA/DRN ESCRIME research program is to determine the optimum automation level of nuclear reactors which would lead to the safest operating conditions. The hardest problem to solve is the dialogue between operators and robots in the resolution of complex situations in which part of the solution is held by the operator and the other part is held by the machine. Distributed artificial intelligence techniques is one of the explored ways to solve this man-machine cooperation problem. (J.S.). 3 refs., 4 figs