Development of FPGA based TCP/IP communication module for Embedded Systems of Nuclear Reactors

Distributed digital control architecture is being followed for plant data communication and control of final control elements in current and upcoming generation of nuclear power plants. Ethernet communication using TCP/IP protocol plays a key role in interconnecting over 40,000 signals that are geographically distributed across the plant with centralized server and display stations located in main control room. TCP/IP Communication modules are used in each embedded system for sending and receiving digitized data over plant backbone. Offloading TCP/IP communication tasks from the main processor guarantees real time performance for safety critical and safety related applications in nuclear power plant. This approach simplifies software architecture and makes CPU function independent of communication tasks, thereby making overall system dependable & predictable. Design of such TCP/IP communication module for better maintainability, smoother certification and replacement for commercially available module is described in this paper.