Comparison of three modern controllers for wide range power regulation of nuclear reactors

Nuclear reactors are in nature nonlinear and their parameters vary with time as a function of power level, fuel burn up, and control rod worth. Therefore, these characteristics must be considered if large power variations occur in power plant working regimes (for example in load following conditions). In this paper performance of three different controllers for wide range operation of nuclear reactor is presented and compared. First a robust optimal self-tuning regulator (ROSTR) has been designed and simulated to control reactor power. Then based on response of the ROSTR as the reference trajectory a fuzzy adaptive robust optimal controller (FAROC) has been presented. At last a neural network controller (NNC) based on the response of ROSTR is designed and simulated. Then performance of these three controllers in regards to speed and accuracy are compared.