This is a technical position paper stating Porritt Inc.'s engineering view. It is not a peer-reviewed publication and does not report experimental results. Where it forecasts capability, it is stating design intent rather than achieved performance.
Between relay and software
Machine protection relays are fast but blunt. Supervisory software is capable but slow. There is a band of events that need both speed and context, and nothing occupies it well.
A bounded reflex tier
A narrow, deterministic, independently verifiable tier that acts in microseconds on a small set of well-characterised conditions — and does nothing else.
Narrow by design
The value of a reflex tier comes from being small enough to verify exhaustively. Scope creep would destroy the property that makes it trustworthy.
Verification is the hard part
Deterministic verification of a learned function is an unsolved problem. A reflex tier may need to be conventionally programmed and merely informed by learning.
Whether a learned classifier can ever be certified for a protective function, or whether the reflex tier must remain conventionally programmed, is the central open question. Our current view is the latter, with learning confined to advisory roles.
Discuss the research.
We welcome technical challenge on these positions. Collaboration enquiries welcome.
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