ROBOTS & MESH NETWORKS | INSTRUMENTATION & CONTROL
Above: Network infrastructure that can withstand a nuclear plant’s notoriously challenging environment is required
efficiency, operators have begun to appreciate the benefits of automated technologies and are implementing them into their operations. Robotics come in all shapes and sizes, such as crawling
and flying across sites or sensing and grabbing onsite materials. The major advantage of robots over humans in radioactive environments is that they are made of steel and silicon rather than organic cells and their fragile DNA. Deploying robotics to monitor and inspect equipment in radioactive settings eliminates worker safety risks by completely removing them from the situation. Robots also have discrete sensing capabilities able to identify and target maintenance needs more accurately. Although robots are increasingly autonomous, they do not operate in isolation and continuously send and receive data. The greatest challenge of supporting robotic and autonomous solutions is therefore keeping them connected to a data network. Safety and security are significant obstacles in such an environment, requiring real-time optimisation and complete visibility. Expanding interconnectivity puts pressure on the network that must ensure the security and authenticity of the communications traffic moving in, out, and across it. To achieve and maintain peak productivity and efficiency, mission-critical applications must run on a communications network that offers reliable, agile, and adaptable connectivity that can thrive in diverse, evolving, mobility-driven environments. These critical networks cannot afford downtime.
Radiating pain in the network The many mission-critical operations within nuclear plants need help to afford to experience data loss or lag that ultimately leads to stoppages. Proactively detecting anomalies in nuclear operations before they have any inadvertent effect on plant availability and safety is also paramount. Continuous communications to robotics while receiving real-time feedback on maintenance requirements allows operators to make swift decisions. Cable infrastructure, such as optical fibre, can be
susceptible to heat produced in nuclear environments with reactors. Destruction of these cables can cause downtime and a complete shutdown of operations. Radiation can also interrupt molecular chains in materials, especially plastics, causing them to break down, causing defects and making the cable inoperable.
When deploying conventional wireless networks
such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE), enterprise Wi-Fi, or 5G technology, operators can experience connectivity difficulties. For instance, some mobile devices need more infrastructure capabilities, so they can only connect to one access point at a time. This means that if an access point fails, all devices connected to that access point are disconnected from the network entirely. Under these circumstances, access points become a potential area of single point failure. Similarly, Wi-Fi communications have always faced mobility challenges. A connection must drop before a new connection can be made, which is inconvenient for robotics constantly traversing rugged and dispersed locations. The best case is that these are 2-5 second dropouts. In the worst case, the robot stops, and operators must manually send a person to get the robot connected to the next hotspot, reintroducing the potential for workers to be exposed to radiation. Furthermore, wireless communications use radio
frequencies (RF), meaning the metal is a huge obstacle. The RF used in wireless networks cannot go through metal but has to go around it. Using 5G worsens the problem as it uses millimetre wavelengths, which cover a very short distance. Any obstruction can halt communication. This is a significant concern in an environment such as a nuclear plant with large metal structures surrounding areas where robotic operations are envisaged. A nuclear plants’ critical network connectivity must
therefore navigate both the obstacles onsite and withstand the significant challenges of radiation and contamination to enable robotics to function efficiently and provide operators with real-time data.
Ensuring on-the-go connectivity for robotics and operations In many cases, the only way to get around physical obstructions is by using machine-to-machine (M2M) broadband wireless communications and a network with M2M connectivity is a huge boost. A mesh network using multiple communication nodes can automatically identify and transmit data between them and support M2M networking. These nodes can automatically adjust themselves to find the fastest and most stable connections. Mesh networks can easily scale up and down quickly by adding or removing nodes. Data can be seamlessly
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