FPGA-Based Technologies Improving the Efficiency of Point to Point Communications in Safety-Related DCSs

As a part of a reactor protection system in safety-related Distributed Control Systems (DCSs) applied in nuclear power plants, Point to Point Communications (PPC) mostly influence the response time of shutdown of a nuclear reactor. A new solution to improve efficiency for point to point communications is receiving increased attention. In this paper, a FPGA-based point to point communications system is proposed, which extremely enhances the communication efficiency for the network communication card with multi-ports. It also delivers a method to meet the requirement of high safety and reliability. In addition, the contribution of shortening the response time of shutdown of a nuclear reactor is presented, which is derived from analysing and calculating the response time based on FirmSys, the first DCS with safety class 1E produced by China with proprietary intellectual property. A validation scheme is also established for verifying the new proposed FPGA-based point to point communications system. The validated platform is built based on the current FirmSys system. The experimental data and calculated result are present in the article. In conclusion, it is proved that the FPGA-based point to point communications could be used to promote the efficiency of point to point communications and shorten the response time of shutdown of a nuclear reactor.