The “NEURON-DONES: Industrial research in critical technologies for the operation and maintenance of large scientific facilities applied to IFMIF-DONES to advance on the path to fusion” project (file number MIG-20221067), in which OROLIA, CUERVA, EMPRESARIOS AGRUPADOS, ENIGMEDIA, IZERTIS, NEGRATIN, PLAIN CONCEPTS and SENER AEROESPACIAL participate, has been subsidised by the CDTI – Centre for Technological Development and Innovation – through the 2022 “Misiones CDTI” Programme call and by the European Union – NextGenerationEU – Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Mechanism.

The NEURON-DONES project was designed with the aim of conducting research to guarantee the optimisation and improvement of processes at IFMIF-DONES, with the purpose of making the most advanced technological and industrial trends available to the infrastructure from an early stage for its optimal implementation. To this end, NEURON-DONES is based on four fundamental vectors. On the one hand, the Sustainability of solutions, while addressing the most novel aspects of Safety. NEURON-DONES also relies on artificial intelligence to ensure Intelligent Operation Management, allowing rapid evolution of systems and the operation plan until stable operation is achieved.

Finally, Data Flow Optimisation will be addressed as an enabler and orchestrator of intelligence.

To cover each of these four critical aspects for industrialisation, NEURON-DONES will address the research listed below.

Sustainability

• Intelligent management of the electrical system (including the external and internal network).
• Integration of the H2 vector, renewables and novel storage systems.
• Self-consumption with renewables, H2 and cogeneration.
• Lithium purification, recycling of yttrium getters and post-processing and recycling of tritium.

Safety

• Redundant physical monitoring of critical safety elements.
• Comprehensive cybersecurity with rapid deployment, high capacity and low cost.

Intelligent Operation Management

• Advanced artificial intelligence for correlation and anomaly analysis, for continuous process improvement.
• Immersive robotic teleoperation to minimise downtime due to interventions in low-accessibility environments.
• Configuration control (BIM) and thermographic surveillance using a quadruped robot.
• Intelligent visualisation and post-mortem event analysis assistant.
• Quantum computing applied to artificial intelligence for GICs.

Data Flow Optimisation

• Deterministic and high-precision time synchronisation (White Rabbit + TSN).
• Distributed and synchronised digitisation of plant signals using low-latency and high-security transmission networks (TSN + Cybersecurity).
• Digitisation and control of extended frequency radiofrequency signals (LLRF-GHz).

In particular, IZERTIS will participate in the research on the application of Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing technologies for continuous process improvement, post-mortem event analysis and application to GICs.

Funded by:

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