Authors: A. Hahn, L. Maccarone, T. Gray, A. Beauchaine, M. Rowland, F. Dougall, J. Grady
Year: 2025
Industry: Nuclear & SMR
Keywords: Use FSE, Digital Twin
ABSTRACT
The Advanced Reactor Cyber Analysis and Development Environment (ARCADE) simplifies the evaluation and assessment of robustness factor and cyber resilience that support secure-by-design for advanced reactor nuclear power plants. In this manner, ARCADE supports risk-informed performance based (RIPB)evaluations of cybersecurity through its integration of plant physics with high-fidelity emulations of control systems. This cross domain approach enables comprehensive analysis of control system sensitivities, cyber-attack scenarios, and their consequences. ARCADE has been custom developed to meet the demands identified in Tier 1 of the Tiered Cyber Analysis (TCA) as outlined in NRC Draft Regulation Guide (RG)5.96, which provides a RIPB cybersecurity approach for new reactors. A key feature of ARCADE currently being developed is the automation of Unsafe Control Action (UCA) sequence determination for a given facility. UCAs sequences provide the foundational inputs to the analysis required by Tier 1 of the TCA. ARCADE utilizes a novel approach to logically reduce the required simulations, and automatically search for those combinations most likely to result in a set of user definable consequences. The intended result is an environment with optimized automation to reduce user effort and limit bias. The TCA from RG 5.96 isa hierarchical process where the outputs of a higher Tier are inputs for the lower Tier. For example the outputs of Tier 1 are inputs to Tier 2. The developed ARCADE features for Tier 1 provide the specific inputs necessary for Tiers 2 & 3. These inputs allow ARCADE to automate design and evaluation of passive features within a Defensive Cyber Security Architecture (DCSA) required by Tier 2 of the TCA. Subsequently Tier 2 outputs provide the basis for the Tier 3 analysis for which ARCADE supports analysis of active cybersecurity measures (e.g., intrusion detection system) to meet Tier 3 requirements and finalize the design. ARCADE consists of modules that are common to all Tiers and others that are specific to one or more Tiers. Integrating these modules into a single environment significantly reduces designer costs and efforts to design and implement secure-by-design features and meet the requirements of the TCA across the entirety of the plant life-cycle. Ultimately ARCADE is seeking to drastically reduce the cost of security implementation for advanced reactors, while improving the robustness of the design against threats. Enabling RIPB approaches allows security focus to be centered on only the systems and components which can produce consequence. ARCADE has demonstrated value for digital twining, hardware in the loop, and co-simulation activities for domains outside of cybersecurity. The preliminary version of ARCADE is opensource and publicly available on GitHub, and is in active use by organizations that support the nuclear industry even prior to completion of maturation of its core capabilities