DECOMMISSIONING & DECONTAMINATION | OFF THE SHELF
Off-the-shelf tech and reduced costs
Technology has always been a key element of nuclear decommissioning, but increasingly the use of commercial ‘off-the-shelf’ technologies are accelerating the process while cutting costs.
By Salvador Pacheco-Gutiérrez, Head of Technology, RAICo, and Kate Canning, Head of R&D, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
potential to perform human-like movements. Through the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
Collaboration (RAICo) programme we have worked with decommissioning sites to adapt quadrupeds to tasks ranging from operating switches to loading scaffold pipes into a cutting station. We are currently working closely with the Remote Technologies Group at Sellafield Ltd to explore how a new 3D-printed swabbing tool and control system can be used on their site. RAICo is a collaboration formed to accelerate the deployment of robotics and AI to solve shared nuclear challenges in nuclear decommissioning and fusion engineering. The NDA estate has used quadrupeds to survey
the reactor bioshield at Trawsfynydd and create a 3D radioactivity map of a cell in a Fuel Cycle Area at Dounreay. Similarly, nuclear sites are exploring ways to adapt
Above: A robot quadruped supports a size reduction innovation at RAICo1 in Cumbria, one of many ways commercial robots are being explored to support decommissioning.. Source: RAICo
THE NUCLEAR DECOMMISSIONING Authority (NDA) is responsible for the safe and secure decommissioning of the UK’s 17 former nuclear fission sites. It has its work cut out. These are complex facilities, which date back to the 1950s in some instances, and were not designed with decommissioning in mind. Whilst there are many shared challenges across sites, they are far from ‘cookie-cutter’ designs. Technology has always been a key element of
addressing these diverse challenges, especially technologies that can be used in hazardous environments. But in recent years a number of ‘commercial-off-the-shelf’ technologies – particularly in general-purpose robotics and the digital sphere – have emerged. These technologies provide ‘platforms’, highly functional
and flexible tools, on top of which we can build solutions to decommissioning challenges, which can then be customised to the different needs of each site.
Robots to the rescue Robots are one of the most visible examples of this ‘platform’ approach, notably the use of robotic quadrupeds, which first appeared in viable forms around 2020. These are highly versatile machines that can walk around complex environments that humans cannot safely enter, navigating debris and climbing stairs in a way that previous generations of robots could not. They can be fitted with all sorts of sensors, and their manipulator arms can grip tools and have the
18 | February 2026 |
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autonomous and remotely operated drones and underwater vehicles to the challenges of a nuclear site. None of these robots was purpose-built for nuclear, and they have many other applications, from oil rig inspections to disaster response. This is what makes them so valuable – their developers have done the hard work of creating a versatile robot, we adapt it for our needs. Many of those needs are replicated across the NDA estate, so can be addressed by a single robot type with relatively minor changes between sites. Off-the-shelf does not just mean physical pieces of equipment like robots. Commercially available digital tools are just as important. Many generic platforms for building digital twins have become invaluable for understanding risk profiles of sites and planning safe and efficient decommissioning tasks. Mapping tools can take LiDAR and dosimetry data collected by robots and create radiation risk maps, which can then be integrated into these digital twins. Analytics tools can recommend optimal courses of action. Tools from the video game industry, such as Unreal Engine, are also proving powerful, allowing us to create hyper-realistic 3D environments, which provide safe places to train new operators or test new robot setups.
Adapting commercial technologies The term commercial-off-the-shelf, or COTS, is often used to describe these physical and digital technologies, but a better term might be MOTS – modified-off-the-shelf. None of these technologies can go straight out of the box to deployment in a radioactive environment. They are platforms with
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