Particle Filter-Based Recursive Data Fusion With Sensor Indexing for Large Core Neutron Flux Estimation

We introduce a sequential importance sampling particle filter (PF)-based multisensor multivariate nonlinear estimator for estimating the in-core neutron flux distribution for pressurized heavy water reactor core. Many critical applications such as reactor protection and control rely upon neutron flux information, and thus their reliability is of utmost importance. The point kinetic model based on neutron transport conveniently explains the dynamics of nuclear reactor. The neutron flux in the large core loosely coupled reactor is sensed by multiple sensors measuring point fluxes located at various locations inside the reactor core. The flux values are coupled to each other through diffusion equation. The coupling facilitates redundancy in the information. It is shown that multiple independent data about the localized flux can be fused together to enhance the estimation accuracy to a great extent. We also propose the sensor anomaly handling feature in multisensor PF to maintain the estimation process even when the sensor is faulty or generates data anomaly.