要使核能被视为可行的清洁能源,，它的价格必须具有竞争力且生产经济。
For nuclear to be considered as a viable clean energy source, it has to be competitively priced and economical to produce.
在西北大学 — 获得材料科学与工程学士学位后，福蒂尔获得了后备军官训练队奖学金 —，她在南中国海深处的一艘美国航空母舰上监督核电站的运行。 “这是一种独特的体验，’在其他地方很难看到,，尤其是完全依赖核电。她说， 在海洋中移动的唯一方法是让核反应堆正常工作,”。
After an undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University — Fortier attended on an ROTC scholarship — she supervised nuclear plant operations on a U.S. aircraft carrier deep in the South China Sea. “It was a unique experience that you don’t easily see anywhere else, especially the complete reliance on nuclear power. The only way you’re moving through the ocean is if you have that nuclear reactor working,” she says.
作为一名海军核操作员, Fortier 爱上了这一切的操作方面, 学习工厂操作背后的科学。她也更加意识到流程的缺陷。 Fortier 注意到许多工厂的操作都需要极其大量的人力,，并且想知道是否可以减少这种程度。
Working as a naval nuclear operator, Fortier fell in love with the operations aspects of it all, learning the science behind plant operations. She also became more aware of process shortcomings. Fortier noticed many plant operations were extremely manually intensive, and wondered if they could be less so.
就在她思考这些想法的时候,，海军为福蒂尔提供了一个从批准的学科列表中攻读硕士学位的机会的。福蒂尔选择了麻省理工学院的核工程作为她工作的延伸。 “M 到目前为止，我在核方面的经验都是非常积极的,，所以我想我会以此为基础，从运营领域转向学术领域,” Fortier 说。海军的高强度训练让她为麻省理工学院严谨的学术氛围做好了准备。
At around the time she was mulling these ideas, the Navy offered Fortier an opportunity to pursue a master的 degree from a list of approved disciplines. Fortier opted for nuclear engineering at MIT as an extension of her work. “My experiences in nuclear up until then had been overwhelmingly positive, so I thought I would build on them and move from the operations realm to the academic realm,” Fortier says. The intense training with the Navy prepared her for the academic rigor at MIT.
Fortier 为她的硕士的 学位, 开发了一个用于核电站运行的监控系统。她使用具有强烈热水力响应的模拟器。我们的假设是，从模拟中吸取的经验教训将转化为现实世界的经验教训。
For her master的 degree, Fortier developed a supervisory control system for the operation of nuclear plants. She worked with a simulator that had a strong thermal hydraulic response. The assumption was that lessons learned from the simulations would translate to real-world equivalents.
追求核电站的自主运行
In pursuit of autonomous nuclear plant operations
事实证明，大师的的研究只是冰山一角。还有工作要做。
It turns out the research for the master的 was just the tip of the iceberg. There was still work left to be done.
对于核电, 未来的可行性，位于农村地区, 的小型电厂, 是一种明显的可能性。到目前为止，, 在遗留工厂中进行的操作涉及密集的手动操作,，这是可行的，因为这些设施以 100% 的容量运行，并且所提供的电力可以证明维持大量员工的成本是合理的。但大规模分布在偏远地区的微反应器无法承担大量人才。受监督和彻底审查的自主运营将会有所帮助。
For the future viability of nuclear power, small plants, located in rural areas, are a distinct possibility. Thus far, operations conducted in legacy plants have involved intensive manual operations, which are viable because these facilities operate at 100 percent capacity and the power delivered can justify the costs of maintaining a large staff. But microreactors distributed at scale and in remote areas can’t afford a large bench of human talent. It的 where supervised and thoroughly vetted autonomous operations will help.
主要问题是: “我们如何过渡到核电站的自主运行?” Fortier 希望采用一种集成方法, 一个中央监控系统，而不是许多相互关联的部件。虽然这是一个合理的要求,，但这里的挑战是修改主要针对人类的操作，现在也包括机器。
A primary question was: “How do we transition to autonomous operations in nuclear power plants?” Fortier wanted one integrated approach, a central supervisory control system instead of many interlinked parts. While a legitimate requirement, the challenge here was in modifying operations that were primarily meant for humans to now also include machines.
Fortier 意识到，无论监控系统的框架多么完善,，如果其刚性无法 容纳人类和机器，其范围将受到严重限制。 “因为一切都以人为中心,，所以’t不允许您选择执行手术的最佳方式,” Fortier 观察到。如果, 相反, 人类和计算机可以组队并做各自最擅长的事情, 仅在必要时提供战略性人工干预?
Fortier realized that no matter how thorough the framework for a supervisory control system, its scope would be severely limited if its rigidity couldn’t accommodate both humans and machines. “Because everything is human-centric, it doesn’t allow you to choose the best way to do a procedure,” Fortier observes. What if, instead, humans and computers could tag-team and do what each does best, with strategic human intervention only delivered as necessary?
目标是优雅的,，但其范围远远超出了大师的 的论文。博士学位似乎是自然进展,，因此 Fortier 在 2025 年完成硕士学位的 后继续攻读博士学位。
The goal was elegant, but its scope extended far beyond a master的 thesis. A doctorate seemed like a natural progression, so Fortier has continued her research toward a PhD after completing her master的 in 2025.
“I’m 非常是一名工程师，并且在人类行为方面没有丰富的经验,，因此与 INL 的合作对我来说是一个巨大的好处。我对许多方面有了更好的了解,，包括当机器的 不再工作时，当人类必须接管机器时你想看到的情况,” Fortier 说。
“I’m very much an engineer and don’t have a lot of experience in human behavior, so the collaboration with INL was a huge benefit for me. I got better insights into many aspects, including what you want to see when a human has to take over for a machine when it的 no longer working,” Fortier says.
她还利用与西屋, 的合作，西屋, 是当前和下一代核电站的领先设计组织和供应商— Fortier 于 2025 年在那里完成了暑期实习—，以测试她关于自主运营解决方案的想法。
She also availed of collaborations with Westinghouse, a leading design organization and vendor for current- and next-generation nuclear power plants — Fortier completed a summer internship there in 2025 — to test drive ideas she had about autonomous operations solutions.
Annaswamy 为 Fortier 提供有关监控系统框架和执行的建议。 Fortier 还一直在学习与控制系统相关的课程，以奠定该学科的基础。 Curtis Smith,，INL的 核安全与监管研究部, 前任主任，现任 MIT NSE, 核科学与工程实践 KEPCO 教授，是 Fortier的 的另一位联合顾问。
Annaswamy advises Fortier on supervisory control system framework and execution. Fortier has also been taking classes related to control systems related classes to build a foundation in the discipline. Curtis Smith, the former director for INL的 Nuclear Safety and Regulatory Research Division, and now KEPCO Professor of the Practice of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT NSE, is Fortier的 other co-advisor.
Fortier 澄清说，她 设计的操作系统将逐步、系统地走向自治，以建立与用户的信任。 “当我们引入自动化程序时，它会逐步引导您完成您将要做的事情,，这会让人放心并建立信任,” Fortier 指出。她的博士工作重点是整合面向目标的操作，其中控制系统可以创建达到目标, 所需的事件序列，而不是遵循预定的操作程序。
Fortier clarifies that the operations systems she的 designing will incorporate a gradual and systematic move toward autonomy so as to build trust with users. “When we introduce an automated procedure that walks you step by step through what you would be doing anyway, it is reassuring and builds trust,” Fortier points out. Her doctoral work focuses on incorporating objective-oriented operations where a control system can create the sequence of events needed to reach the objective, rather than follow a predetermined operating procedure.
另一点让人放心的是，Fortier 正在开发基于名为有限状态自动机, 的流程的自动化，其中, 与 AI, 不同，其执行过程非常透明。 2024 年夏天，她在 INL, 实习期间广泛研究了有限状态自动机,，其优点是它 是一个离散事件系统。这意味着自动化框架中的每一步都是事件驱动的 — 如果发生这种情况, 执行该操作 — 因此它会根据工厂中的当前条件进行调整并非常清楚地在各种状态或事件之间进行转换。它’通过传统的自动化解决复杂的问题,而不是人工智能驱动的自动化。 “我们’没有使用机器学习等数据驱动的统计方法，因为我们还没有工具来验证此类系统的运行,” Fortier 说。
Another point of reassurance is that Fortier is developing automation based on a process called finite state automata, which, unlike AI, is very transparent in its execution. The advantages of finite state automata, which she also studied extensively during an internship at INL in summer 2024, is that it的 a discrete event system. This means that every move in the automation framework is event-driven — if this happens, do that — so it adjusts for current conditions in the plant and transitions between various states or events very clearly. It的 addressing a complex problem through conventional automation, not AI-driven automation. “We’re not using a data-driven statistical approach like machine learning because we do not yet have the tools to validate the operation of such systems,” Fortier says.
在下一代设备上使用核电站自动化程序将为开发和部署商业微反应器提供必要的动力。
Using the nuclear plant automation program on next-generation equipment will deliver necessary traction in developing and deploying commercial microreactors.
但首先将是扩展监督控制系统, 的工作，借鉴从控制的一个小方面的工作中获得的见解。福蒂尔对这条路和等待着的可能性感到兴奋。 “与其他人,的合作以及我们与利益相关者,建立的关系确实有助于产生影响并支持工作的相关性,”她说。 “有时当你’陷入自己的泡沫,时，外部视角确实很有用。”
But first will come the work of scaling the supervisory control system, borrowing from insights gained from work on a small aspect of control. Fortier is excited about the road and the possibilities that await. “The collaborations with other people, and the relationships we have established with stakeholders, have really helped make an impact and supported the relevancy of the work,” she says. “Sometimes when you’re stuck in your own bubble, that outside perspective is really useful.”