Advanced technologies for nuclear instrumentation monitoring and diagnostics 

How to optimize maintenance in nuclear power plants thanks to Advanced health monitoring of process instrumentation

Framatome is an international leader in the nuclear industry. Part of EDF group, Framatome designs and builds nuclear power plants, manufactures components for these plants, provides maintenance services and cybersecurity solutions, develops control systems and fabricates fuel. Framatome employs more than 22,000 people worldwide.

Because instrumentation & control (I&C) systems are critical equipment for the safety and the availability of nuclear reactors, you need to ensure that these systems and the associated components work properly. Because these systems and components are also operated over very long periods, you need to monitor their performance over their life cycle.

In order to respond to these issues, Framatome has developed “PULSE”, a range of services to perform the monitoring of safety-classified and non-safety-classified I&C components.

In particular, Framatome designs and qualifies process instrumentation systems, including temperature, pressure, flow and level sensors, and integrates them into control-command architectures. Framatome also provides instrumentation diagnostics and maintenance services, especially through PULSE.

As this activity expands, Framatome wishes to enhance its current offer and develop new services for its operator clients, with the aim of optimising maintenance operations through new diagnostic technologies and the use of artificial intelligence.

The objectives of the Open Innovation Day

The purpose of the Open Innovation Day is to identify and select start-ups, SMEs, research laboratories and other industrial partners to develop solutions for real-time or offline monitoring and advanced diagnostics of process instrumentation.

Several axes are considered:

💠 Axis 1: innovative signal processing, preferably at low frequencies (< 1Hz)

💠 Axis 2: exploiting the correlation between data from multiple sources and quantifying the health status of sensors (temperature, pressure, flow, level)

💠 Axis 3: exploiting peripheral information (manufacturing, calibration and maintenance data)

What opportunities with Framatome can be expected for the selected companies/laboratories?

💠 Collaboration on innovation and R&D projects over the next 10 years (development of the instrumentation process roadmap, online monitoring and sensor health status, automatic calibration, diagnostics and predictive maintenance)

💠 Implementation of solutions for customers’ projects and responses to calls for tender

💠 Start of a PhD thesis (CIFRE)

💠 Opportunity for studies and proof of concept projects, technology scouting and identification of use cases

👉 Contracting is expected to happen during the third quarter of 2026.

What are the requirements and skills expressed by Framatome?

Develop online monitoring and sensor data analysis tools to achieve the following objectives:

1. ADVANCED DIAGNOSTICS: Create sensor health indicators using various strategies (partial redundancy, signal and N-order behaviour analysis, exploitation of signal time and frequency domains, etc.).

2. PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE:  Prevent or accurately detect potential sensor failures (anomalies, drifts and performance deviations). The main objective is to anticipate potential failures in order to optimize interventions during outage phases (unit outages) by alerting on drifts or instrumentation future malfunctions.

3. OPTIMISATION OF OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE: Optimise sensor maintenance operations, particularly calibration, by reducing systematic preventive maintenance.

The following skills are given as examples to provide a better understanding of the scope of the search for partners. They are neither exhaustive nor restrictive:

💠 Sensors with integrated diagnostics, ideally qualified for high safety levels (SIL3, SIL4 or class 1, class 2 nuclear)

💠 Data analysis and diagnostic support tools

💠 Innovative calibration solutions

💠 Data intercorrelation and reconciliation tools

💠 Machine learning (ML) algorithms and tools related to instrumentation

08:30 – 09:00 | Welcome Coffee

09:00 – 09:30 | Presentation of Framatome: objectives and technologies considered

09:30 – 10:00 | Companies’ expertise presentation (pitches) - 1st session

10:00 – 10:15 | Break

10:15 – 10:45 | Companies’ expertise presentation (pitches) - 2nd session

10:45 – 12:45 | 1st Workshop session: Sensors' health diagnostics

12:45 – 14:15 | Lunch & networking

14:15 – 16:15 | 2nd Workshop session: Optimization of maintenance & calibration (maybe in French language)

16:15 – 16:30 | Wrap-up

16:30 – 17:30 | Networking / individual meetings between Framatome experts and organizations (optional)

17:30  | End of event