NDE & INSPECTION, DIAGNOSTICS & ROBOTICS | ROBOTICS
Unlocking the potential of robotics
Christian Pilon explores the opportunities for integration of robots with remote-control and digital twin technologies in the nuclear industry
THERE IS A WELL-KNOWN saying in robotics and automation that if a task is ‘dirty, dull or dangerous’ then it should be automated. ‘Difficult’ and ‘dear’ are sometimes added to the list. There are plenty of tasks that fall into one of these five categories in the nuclear industry, yet robots are still used relatively rarely. Nuclear sites are amongst the most challenging
Christian Pilon
Head of Robotics – Nuclear at SNC Lavalin
environments for robots, with high radiation levels, limited access and lack of automation infrastructure. All these operational risks are precisely why robots should be used — to minimise risk to humans. However, technology used on nuclear sites must be at a high readiness and robustness level and this requirement often prohibits experiments in adopting emerging technology. How can we overcome these barriers to unlock the potential of robotics for nuclear?
Drawing inspiration from other sectors In other industries, such as automotive, electronics and packaging, robots are not emerging technology. Robots typically excel at repetitive tasks in well-structured environments, such as a production line in a car factory. When the environment is predictable, for tasks such as material handling or machine tending, the robot requires limited intelligence to do its job and, when the production volumes are high, there is generally a good business case for automation and robotics. As production costs in other industries have increased
and robot prices have decreased and, other industries have also looked to robots to solve their challenges. Aerospace
is a good example. Compared to the automotive industry, production volumes are relatively low and the complexity of the manufacturing processes is high, but there are still plenty of applications where automation makes sense. That may be from for safety (avoiding repetitive operations); quality (sometimes manual processes cannot meet precision and tolerance requirements) or cost efficiencies. Agriculture is another example of a challenging, less
structured environment where robots are making an entry. Picking fruits would not have been considered an achievable application ten years ago. The challenges of the nuclear industry for robot implementation may be unique, but the solutions and technologies do not have to be, which is why it makes sense to consider how other industries are embracing robotics.
Supporting the deployment of robotics in nuclear For robots to operate in challenging conditions, their technologies have improve perception and ability to interact with the environment. While the standard approach in robotics has always been to change a process to simplify automation — adapting the environment to the robot — this is not always practical in the nuclear industry. It is increasingly important to have robots that can adapt to the world, not the other way around. A common example of how robots can perceive their
environment is the use of cameras and machine vision. In recent years, the lower cost of cameras and algorithms that combine machine learning with greater processing power have resulted in new capabilities that could benefit nuclear. In e-commerce fulfilment centres, some robots now use low-cost 3D vision sensors and AI to prepare orders for consumer products. This ability to identify and select objects of different shapes and appearances could be applied to nuclear waste segregation, if the technology can be adapted to such challenging environments. Progress is also being made in force control, providing
the robot with a sense of touch. Mechanical innovations can also help, such as adaptive robot grippers that can grasp objects that vary in shape and size, without having to rely on sophisticated sensors and software. Advances in human-robot collaboration will facilitate the deployment of robots in the future, particularly as we use robotics to reduce risk and enhance workforce safety. Collaborative robots, for instance, are a type of robot
Above: Spot is a quadrupedal robot that can be used for characterisation 30 | April 2022 |
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intended to be deployed safely around people, with features such as collision detection and force limitation. A complete safety risk assessment is always required before deploying any robot but, in the right conditions, these robots can operate alongside operators without
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