General > General Technical Chat
100% touchscreen nuke control room - improvement or abomination?
AlbertL:
For now it's just a simulator - actually a simulation of a simulator if I understand correctly.
Anyway, what I want to know is - can it simulate this? https://youtu.be/nemYBeT4aQY?t=170
Cubdriver:
I think there are things (like nuclear plant controls) that should probably remain as physical things. Items such as those 'rotary switches' they were touching, for instance. In an emergency, you might have to switch a whole row of them. With physical things, you can look for the first one, get your hand on it and twist, then with minimal if any observation of the control board can then work quickly along the row throwing each in turn while perhaps monitoring something more important. With a touch panel, you need to look at each to be sure you touch the right spot on the smooth, featureless panel, and then confirm that the control has actually toggled (I admittedly don't know what if any feedback is provided when the controls are actuated, but doubt it'd be as clear as the tactile click you'll feel when turning a physical switch).
And lord help you if the panel BSODs on you, or decides it doesn't like your finger today because it's too dry, or too moist, or...
It strikes me as an interfacing fail, but that's just me - I'm old school and prefer dedicated knobs and switches to soft controls.
-Pat
Gyro:
Really nice... until the cleaner comes in with his/her trolley and starts cleaning all of the fingerprints off the screens! :-DD
AlbertL:
...and the night-shift operators discover that holding down the Auxiliary Feedwater Pump #1 Start and Stop buttons together for five seconds opens a PornHub.com window.
CatalinaWOW:
All things have failure modes, and for important stuff you need redundancy and work arounds for when that happens. I can imagine doing touchscreens for nuclear plant control, but doubt that it would be implemented in a way that would make me feel good. Dedicated screens for all controls - no nesting or modal presentation of information (having a supervisor panel for observation with nested screens to allow observation of anything is ok, but I don't want an operator to have to page through screens to scram the reactor). Back up systems that are completely independent on failure modes. Different hardware, different software and different OS. And a whole list of other stuff. By the time the dust settled the old steam gauge approach might end up looking pretty cost effective. So if it happens it won't be good enough.
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