Ivery Prangishvili Laboratory 31
«Distributed Data-Analysis and Control Systems»

Laboratory 31 was founded in 1964 under the guidance of Doctor of Sciences (Eng.), Member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences, Professor Ivery Prangishvili who led it from 1964 to February 2006.

Ivery Varlamovich Prangisvili was an outstanding researcher in the field of theory and development of the processes and systems of control, informatics, and computer engineering. In 1959 Ivery Varlamovich defended the candidate thesis in engineering. He developed a remote control unit that was required in a number of applications. This unit was based on a new philosophy and novel hardware. The Tank Department of the USSR Defense Ministry took special interest in using it for control of the targets at the tank firing grounds.

In 1969 Ivery Varlamovich defended the doctoral thesis «Principle Underlying Design of Homogeneous Structures for Logical and Computing Devices." In 1970 he was nominated the Deputy Director for Science and in 1987 was approved as the Institute Director.

I.v. Prangishvili proposed a new promising line of design of the elements and units of the control and computer systems on the basis of the homogeneous microelectronic structures (HS). Subsequent development of HS by I. L. Medvedev in collaboration with S.Ya. Vilenkin under the leadership of I.v. Prangishvili gave rise to the high-performance multiprocessor high-performance computer systems PS-2000 that were oriented to the high-dimension vector-matrix problems.

The PS-2000 family computers exemplified the union of the actual needs and leading ideas embodied with the use of the domestic technologies. Relying on the joint designs with the IPU RAS, the NIIUVM (Severodonetsk) manufactured between 1981 and 1988 242 PS-2000 systems of which several operated from 1982 to 1997 at the Space Flight Control Center.

At the same time, v. V. Ignatushchenko in collaboration with laboratory 46 (E. A. Trakhtengerts) designed computer systems PS-3000 with multiple flows of instructions and data that were intended for the upper levels of the complex hierarchical high-performamce control systems. The first computers were manufactured at NIIUVM (Severodonetsk) only at the late 1980’s. Their finishing and production were aborted because of the changes in this country.

In the mid-1990’s the Russian nuclear industry began its invasion of the world’s market. Some countries such as Iran, India, China, and others manifested interest in buying the domestic power-generating units with light-water reactors of the VVER-1000 type. This gave rise to the need for automated control systems for the upper-level control unit of the nuclear power stations. This control unit has to implement the algorithms for monitoring, control, and diagnosis, system for representation of the NPS safety parameters, system to register the critical operational parameters, and so on which are necessary according to the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Design of a basically new control system for the upper level of NPS was assigned to the Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences under the general leadership of the Institute’s Director I.v. Prangishvili (responsible executives M. A. Zuenkov and A. G. Poletykin).

Developed were the mathematical apparatus to create program systems based on the fuzzy logic, ABIS programming language, programs for rule generation from the data of modeling complex processes, and fuzzy knowledge bases for qualitative modeling. A number of new information technologies applicable in various fields including the power-industry enterprises, chemical and other industries were developed in the course of this work.

The studies enabled design of the NPS process control system with the integrating part, the upper-level computer system centralizing the data flows and offering to the NPS personnel reliable and fast facilities for station control.

In his last years Ivery Varlamovich Prangisvili was engaged in the studies of the system approach to control and identification of the systemic regularities in the natural and social systems. Origination of the conflict and crisis situations in the social control systems was determined, and the means to alleviate them were studied. At the same time, developed was a procedure to estimate complexity of various control systems, ecologization of science and anthropogenic systems. A number of restrictive regularities were proposed to increase control efficiency and minimize the probability of critical situations.

Doctor Alexei Grigor’evich Poletykin heads the laboratory from the mid-2006. He is with the laboratory since 1983. For the time being, the laboratory has 49 persons of which three have the doctoral and thirteen, the candidate degrees.

The laboratory is vectored to developing new methods of modeling, facilities to design and control the distributed control systems, design of new structures and network information technologies for process control including the nuclear industry, stationary and moving marine plants, systems for monitoring and registration of the power plant and environmental parameters.

The «Operator» system was developed on the basis of new information technologies for monitoring, control, and diagnosis. It includes the operating system, SCADA system, CAD, and some software systems for development, introduction, training, and support of the complex distributed information and computer systems. At all stages of designing the control system, the emphasis is laid on the criterion for safety of the NPS plants and use of all kinds of control such as the traditional control, control of designs, and operational control. The scientific results of these studies are embodied in the existing designs of NPS control systems.

The major part of the software systems was certified and is permitted for use in the safety-critical systems of nuclear power engineering.

The studies support a complex approach to the large-scale efficient control and computer systems meeting the requirements on power efficiency and information safety (cybersafety).

The laboratory participates in the grants of the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Studies, programs of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and numerous contracts including the contracts for design of the control systems for foreign NPS’s.

Currently the laboratory works along the following lines of research. Development of the concept, principles of design, methods, and algorithms for a new class of highly reliable, cyberstable information-and-control systems based on the cognitive methods of danger monitoring. (A. G. Poletykin).

Development of the theory and methods of automated design of the distributed data processing systems for control of hazardous plants. Much attention is paid to the development of the methodology of the informational (cyber) safety of the digital control systems of the power industry. (A. G. Poletykin and v. G. Promyslov).

Development and study of the methods of analysis of the characteristics of the deterministic queuing systems with the aim of determining the limiting time characteristics for the NPS process control systems. (v. G. Promyslov).

Study and development of the optimal methods of firmware realization of the fail-safe reconfigurable control systems for the hardware of ships and underwater vehicles. Studies and development of the construction methods and structure of the network system of group control on the basis of wireless technologies with regard for the strict operational requirements including high economical efficiency and protection against external actions and dangers. Development of the design concept and realization of the measuring and computing systems for registration of the parameters of safety-critical plants. (A. I. Ivanov).

Development of the Cloud computing methodology for informational support of the development control of large-scale systems. Development of the technological principles of Cloud Builders for design, optimization, and adaptation of the information processes of the virtual centers of intersubjective grid-network control. Demonstration of the advantages of the cloud technologies of consolidated monitoring (accelerated deployment, large-scale data storage, open joint interdisciplinary designs, and so on) in the applied field of controlling the strategic territorial development. (I. A. Stepanovskaya).

Сontrol in the global computer media in mathematically uniform field of computer information. The concepts, methods, and principles of constructing the facilities for structurally intact and functionally complete network-centered control on the basis of the tree-like structure calculus.

Development of the fundamentals and methods of providing cybersafety of the distributed calculation systems and network-centered control in the mathematically uniform algorithmic space. (Yu. S. Zatuliveter and E. A. Fishchenko).

Modeling of large-scale systems on the basis of conceptual analysis of the knowledge domain. Design of efficient logical models for discrete data processing within the framework of the formal logical and conceptual approaches. (v. S. Vykhovanets).

Development of the information-and-diagnostic system for analysis and recognition of the micro-images of medical and biological objects, organization of the system for monitoring patient’s state and treatment including the systems for acquisition, grouping, and processing of the observation results for diagnosis, forecasting, and control of treatment with the aim of using them in the everyday medical practice. (G. M. Popova).

The laboratory is actively engaged in organization and holding of the scientific seminars, workshops, and conferences. The workshop «Multiprocessor Computer Systems. Homogeneous Structures» organized by the laboratory was held in the course of several years. The laboratory is among the organizers of international conferences such as «Control of Development of the Large-scale Systems, MLSD», «Parallel Computations and Problems of Control," «Hardware and Software of the Systems Control, Measurement, and Monitoring, UKI," and other conferences and seminars in allied subject matters.