Lockheed Martin on Wednesday announced a deal to help develop instrumentation and control systems for indigenous Chinese reactors.
Lockheed's nuclear systems and solutions division will work with the State Nuclear Power Automation System Engineering Company to prototype and manufacture an I&C platform for reactor protection systems, according to a release. Based on a field-programmable gate array technology, it is meant to address software common cause failures in digital nuclear safety systems. It will be engineered for use in new and existing plants.
The two companies, which did not announce the terms of the contract, have also approached the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for potential use of the system in the U.S.
SNPAS is a state-owned subsidiary of State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. According to its website, SNPAS was formed to develop systems for reactors like China's CAP1400 spinoff of the Generation III Westinghouse AP1000 reactor.