Intelligent real-time system management: towards an operator companion for nuclear power plants

This paper reports on an investigation of the integration of symbolic computation and reasoning into highly computerized numerically-based realtime control systems for complex plant process management. This is the natural next step in an evolving maturation of the use of computers for automated monitoring and control of continuous processes. A particular implementation involving nuclear power plant intelligent monitoring is being developed from which overall principles and specifications can be distilled, ultimately leading to a general methodology that can be applied to other continuous plant processes.