Present status of application of AI in nuclear industry

Artificial intelligence (AL) techniques have been introduced actively in the nuclear industry in pursuit of increased safety and efficiency. The present report outlines some AI techniques currently used in nuclear facilities. This type of techniques have increasingly been introduced to such areas as design, construction, operation, maintenance, quality control and analysis. Most of them use knowledge engineering techniques including expert systems. Positive efforts at research and application of various more advance AI techniaues have started recently. For application of AI techniques, activities in nuclear power plants can be divided into two groups. One includes 'analytical' activities such as operation, maintenance and analysis, while the other includes 'synthetic' activities such as design, construction and fuel control. The most important AI technology for the analytical activities is diagnosis. Thus the report outlines major processes to which diagnostic techniques are applicable, and knowledge description and inference methods used for diagnosis. For AI techniques for synthetic activities, some problems and possible solutions are addressed. Development efforts in and outside Japan are also outlined. (Nogami, K.)