ROBOTICS & DIGITAL | NUCLEAR INNOVATION
Mobile robots help clean up legacy
Highly mobile robots are helping to inspect and clean up some of the nuclear industry’s most hazardous sites. It’s another example of nuclear innovation being deployed to realise the biggest benefits of technology.
IN SEPTEMBER, FOUR-LEGGED “SPOT” ROBOTS, developed by US-based Boston Dynamics, were used to negotiate pitch-black conditions to map an evaporator cell in the fuel cycle area of the Dounreay site in Scotland. Dounreay was the UK’s former fast reactor test facility, which operated from 1955 to 1994. It is now being decommissioned and ongoing clean-up and dismantling work is continuing. Spot’s task was to map out the four-storey cell,
collecting important radiological data for the team to use when planning the decommissioning of the facility; and to gain useful experience on how the robot and survey equipment should be used. A team of 12 supported the robot trials. This includes
Dounreay staff led by Project Manager Bernie Jones, as well as staff from Createc, the systems integrator for Spot, who are working with Dounreay on a series of seven use
cases for the robot to be carried out over the next few months. The site joiners constructed a wooden mock-up of the
evaporator cell entrance and temporary containment in a clean area to test the abilities of the robot and train its operators before the work moved into the actual evaporator cell itself. Once inside the evaporator cell a Spot robot, covered
in a protective suit, collected data to give the team a complete 3-dimensional map of the area. It also collected the data needed to create a full dosimetry map showing areas of higher radioactivity, which will enable the team to develop a radiological fingerprint. “By doing the initial groundwork, Spot has shown us the hazards that might affect workers who are tasked with the decommissioning, said Bernie Jones. “We will use the data to ensure that we mitigate those hazards and keep
20 | WNE Special Edition |
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