Expansion of Application
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on Dec. 22 that it has signed an evaluation contract with KEPCO Engineering & Construction (KEPCO E&C) to expand the use of its high-confidence real-time operating system (OS) for army aircraft, called the Qplus Air, to control power plants. It has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the standardization of railway parts with the Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI).
In 2012, ETRI installed the Qplus Air on an unmanned aircraft and successfully tested the OS on drones. The OS was also adopted to run the condition monitoring system in Surion helicopters.
This time, it will be used in railroads and nuclear power plants, which are directly connected with public safety. For railroads, various types of trains are running by regions and routes in the country, but there are no standardized railway parts. Currently, small and medium-sized suppliers in Korea have to produce parts of various kinds and in small quantities. Therefore, it is hard to get a supply of parts in time and the suppliers to grow. In order to improve the situation, the ETRI is planning to apply real-time OS, Qplus, to the technology of standardizing railway parts in the KRRI.
In addition, ETRI has decided to evaluate the applicability of Qplus Air on a Man Machine Interface System (MMIS) in power plants. MMIS is an integrated management system of operation, control, surveillance, measurement, and safety functions during an emergency.
As the functions of MMIS in power plants have diversified, technologies of software and operating systems have become more important. However, as the nuclear power industry is reluctant to adopt foreign commercial products due to reliability and regulation issues, a domestic OS must be used. If a domestic OS will be used this time after an application evaluation, it would help insure nuclear technology independence, including software and MMIS technologies.