Quantitative measures of thoroughness of FBD simulations for PLC-based digital I&C system

Simulation is a widely used functional verification method for FBD programs of PLC-based digital I&C system in nuclear power plants. It is difficult, however, to estimate the thoroughness (i.e., effectiveness or quality) of a simulation in the absence of any clear measure for the estimation. Thi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNuclear engineering and technology Vol. 53; no. 1; pp. 131 - 141
Main Authors Lee, Dong-Ah, Kim, Eui-Sub, Yoo, Junbeom
Format Journal Article
LanguageKorean
Published 2021
Subjects
Coverage estimation
Simulation coverage
FBD simulation
Scenario generation
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Summary:Simulation is a widely used functional verification method for FBD programs of PLC-based digital I&C system in nuclear power plants. It is difficult, however, to estimate the thoroughness (i.e., effectiveness or quality) of a simulation in the absence of any clear measure for the estimation. This paper proposes two sets of structural coverage adequacy criteria for the FBD simulation, toggle coverage and modified condition/decision coverage, which can estimate the thoroughness of simulation scenarios for FBD programs, as recommended by international standards for functional safety. We developed two supporting tools to generate numerous simulation scenarios and to measure automatically the coverages of the scenarios. The results of our experiment on five FBD programs demonstrated that the measures and tools can help software engineers estimate the thoroughness and improve the simulation scenarios quantitatively.
Bibliography:KISTI1.1003/JNL.JAKO202124452782540
ISSN:1738-5733
2234-358X