Virtual Sensing to Enable Real-Time Monitoring of Inaccessible Locations & Unmeasurable Parameters
Researchers have developed MIMONet, a novel operator-based virtual sensing framework designed for real-time monitoring of inaccessible or unmeasurable parameters in safety-critical systems, such as nuclear-grade thermal-fluid systems. This approach utilizes neural operators to infer internal fields from sparse boundary measurements, distinguishing itself from traditional estimation methods. Evaluated on complex scenarios including pressurized water reactor subchannels and heat exchangers, MIMONet demonstrated high accuracy with less than 5% relative errors and achieved sub-millisecond inference times on NVIDIA H200 hardware, even under significant sensor noise. AI
IMPACT This research advances the use of neural operators for real-time monitoring in critical infrastructure, potentially improving safety and efficiency where physical sensors are not feasible.