Analysis of Several Digital Network Technologies for Hard Real-time Communications in Nuclear Plant

Applying digital network technology for advanced nuclear plant requires deterministic communication for tight safety requirements, timely and reliable data delivery for operation-critical and mission-critical characteristics of nuclear plant. Communication protocols, such as IEEE 802/4 Token Bus, IEEE 802/5 Token Ring, FDDI, and ARCnet, which have deterministic communication capability are partially applied to several nuclear power plants. Although digital communication technologies have many advantages, it is necessary to consider the noise immunity from electromagnetic interference (EMI), electrical interference, impulse noise, and heat noise before selecting specific digital network technology for nuclear plant. In this paper, we consider the token frame loss and data frame loss rate due to the link error event, frame size, and link data rate in different protocols, and evaluate the possibility of failure to meet the hard real-time requirement in nuclear plant.