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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Abdullah Kadri, Raveendra K. Rao, Jin Jiang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 166 | Number 2 | May 2009 | Pages 156-169
Technical Papers | Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-3
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
There are two major barriers in deploying wireless communication systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs): (a) the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) between the wireless devices and the existing plant instrumentation and control systems, and (b) the high levels of electromagnetic noise and interference from high-powered devices and ionizing radiation sources. In a typical NPP there exist strict regulations that limit transmission power levels to avoid interfering with the sensitive safety systems inside the containment such as ion chambers. This will result in performance degradation of wireless communication systems. This paper proposes a wireless communication scheme based on low-power chirp spread spectrum (CSS) signals, which meet with the EMC requirements of NPPs and also are capable of providing interference rejection. The advantage of such a scheme is that satisfactory performance can be obtained using low levels of transmission power. The structure of the optimal receiver for low-power binary CSS signals and a closed-form expression for asymptotic bit error rate of this receiver are derived. The electromagnetic environment within an NPP is modeled as a Gaussian-Gaussian mixture process, which is based on the measurement data published in a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Regulation (NUREG). The parameters in the model can be adjusted to suit a particular NPP site.
