Wireless
Technology
By H.M. Hashemian, Analysis and
Measurement Services Corporation;
Chad Kiger, Analysis and Measurement
Services Corporation; and Akbar
Moarefy, Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
H.M. Hashemian
Dr. H.M. “Hash” Hashemian is
president of Analysis and Measurement
Services Corporation (AMS), a nuclear
engineering company
headquartered in
Knoxville, Tennessee,
specializing in testing
the instrumentation
and control systems
of nuclear power
plants.
Dr. Hashemian holds
three doctorates in
nuclear engineering,
electrical
engineering, and computer
engineering. He specializes in process
instrumentation, equipment condition
monitoring, on-line diagnostics of
anomalies in industrial equipment
and processes, automated testing, and
technical training. He is the author of 3
books, 9 book chapters, and more than
300 papers and reports, including 70
peer-reviewed journal and magazine
articles and more than 250 conference
papers. In addition, he is the author
or co-author of 22 U.S. patents (15
awarded and 5 pending).
Dr. Hashemian is a Fellow of the
American Nuclear Society (ANS), a
Fellow of the International Society of
Automation (ISA), a Senior Member of
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), and a member of the
European Nuclear Society (ENS).
In 2011 an electrical fire in a diesel
generator at the Diablo Canyon nuclear
power plant in California summoned
California Department of Forestry and
Fire Protection to the plant’s gates. To
their consternation, the firemen learned
that Diablo Canyon does not allow the
use of wireless technology anywhere
within the power block. They were asked
to leave their cell phones and radio com-
munication devices with security person-
nel before entering. Though the fire was
extinguished with no impact on plant
safety or the general public, the Cal Fire
department later notified the plant of their
serious concern with the plant’s policy
on use of wireless communication within
the power block. As a result, a memoran-
dum of mutual understanding was signed
between the Site Vise President and the
San Luis Obispo Cal
Fire Chief to revisit
Diablo
Canyon’s
policy on the use of
cell phones within
the power block. This
event, together with
the realization of the
inefficiencies inher-
ent in restricting wire-
less communication,
fueled the launch of
Diablo Canyon Power
Plant’s wireless proj-
ect.
As productivity-enhancing wireless
technologies proliferate in environments,
such as commercial airlines, where they
used to be excluded, power plants such
as Diablo Canyon are racing to determine
how to avoid potentially disastrous
scenarios by accommodating wireless
communication. They acknowledge that
the use of cell phone and mobile devices
in nuclear power plants is inevitable
and unavoidable, not only for voice but
also for tablet-based work orders and
calibration procedures, wireless access to
plant engineering documentation, pagers
and plantwide voice communication,
temporary or permanent installation of
wireless cameras, radiation monitoring,
asset tracking, and equipment condition
monitoring using wireless sensors.
Indeed, mobile technologies offer
enormous potential for improving the
productivity, radiation dose reduction,
efficiency, and safety through access
to real-time data and communication
transfer. In fact, at Diablo Canyon,
savings have been estimated to exceed
$6 million or 50,000 man-hours annually
from the use of wireless technology for
voice and data communications.
Although wireless technology has
been used to a limited extent already in
nuclear power reactors, wider adoption
has been constrained by industry
concerns over increased upfront costs,
cyber security vulnerabilities, and
social acceptance. However, industry’s
chief concerns about wireless center on
electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)--
the ability of plant equipment to withstand
potential malfunction caused by wireless
transmission--and wireless coexistence--
the ability of wireless devices to operate
in each others’ presence.
To address these concerns, Analysis
and Measurement Services Corp. has
begun developing an integrated system
for EMC and coexistence testing within
nuclear power plants. The system, to be
composed of hardware, software, and
procedures, will employ first-of-its-kind
approaches to enable in-situ testing of
installed plant equipment as well as novel
but practical techniques for transmitting
and receiving wireless signals while
monitoring equipment performance.
Specifically, the final system will have
two primary modules: (1) a test system
to perform wireless immunity testing
in a nuclear plant environment and
(2) a cognitive radio system to test the
coexistence capabilities of wireless
devices. Each module will also contain
software which will be used to operate
the test equipment, perform analysis
of the data, and produce automated test
reports of the results. See figure 1.
Development of this system began
in 2013 with research into the first of
the two primary modules: test methods
to assess the immunity of nuclear plant
equipment to wireless signals. Toward
this objective, AMS is drawing from
existing guidance found in commercial
and military test standards for
performing EMC susceptibility testing
such as IEC 61000-4-3, “Radiated
Radio—Frequency,
Electromagnetic
Field Immunity Test,” and MIL-STD-
461E RS103, “Requirement for the
Control of Electromagnetic Interference
Characteristics of Subsystems and
Equipment – Radiated Susceptibility.”
26
NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, March-April 2015
