Validation and verification of diagonal neural controller for nuclear power plant

A new approach for wide-range optimal reactor temperature control using diagonal recurrent neural networks (DRNN) with an adaptive learning rate scheme is presented. The drawback of the usual feedforward neural network (FNN) is that it is a static mapping and requires a large number of neurons and takes a long training time. The usual fixed learning rate based on an empirical trial and error scheme is slow and does not guarantee convergence. The dynamic backpropagation algorithm coupled with an adaptive learning rate guarantees even faster convergence. A reference model which incorporates an optimal control law with improved reactor temperature response is used for training of the neurocontroller and neuroidentifier. Rapid convergence of this DRNN-based control system is demonstrated when applied to improve reactor temperature performance.