SPECIAL REPORT | FUSION AND DIGITAL ENDEAVOURS
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Using digital twins at JET for remote operations Photo credit: ©MontyRakusen
include images of what it looks like – including robots
and robots moving in real time. We are adding in other information like radiation maps, which provide augmented reality. We are also adding force because we have ‘person in the loop’ machines and haptics [which replicate ‘feel’]. If you handle a component, you can feel the forces involved.” These digital ways of working are not unique to the fusion industry – in fact much of the software has more in common with process industries and with consumer uses such as gaming, than with traditional nuclear engineering. In part, UKAEA’s engagement with the market aims to tap these sectors’ experience and tools. Buckingham says previously nuclear has “fished in a
fairly small pond,” but now, “The nuclear sector needs to reach out to those working in the games sector and all the others to keep up with what is going on and then apply the
useful bits that work in our environment and within our regulations”. He says it would be foolish – expensive and slow – for the industry to try re-create for itself solutions that are used elsewhere. “The games engines we use are software products being used in sectors like automotive, aerospace etc – generic tools and control systems. It is only when you get to machines in specific environments with specific hazards that you get particular.” In practice, to get the best out of new entrants Buckingham says, “You have to give them some context”. It is important not to be too generic in talking to companies previously outside the nuclear industry and wasting development time for both parties, and equally important not to be too nuclear-specific at an early stage and miss out on options that could be adapted to the industry’s needs. One of his examples is the LongOps initiative, a £12 million (US$15.3 million), four-year nuclear industry collaboration funded by UKRI, NDA and TEPCO, and led by UKAEA’s RACE team. He explains, “We are all interested in using digital twins. One condition of the programme was to put 50% of the money into the supply chain and we went out to ask whether they had relevant technologies in these areas and could contribute. We have had a great uptake from a bunch of companies and it has been brilliant to see what companies bring to the table.” He says 80% of the participants are companies familiar to the industry but 20% are new companies with new thinking, for example there is one company that has been developing haptic systems for surgery for a number of years. Buckingham says they are working closely with this company “and hopefully we will get the benefit as they improve their product”.
Above: JET staff inside the Torus Hall at UKAEA’s Culham Campus 20 | July 2023 |
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Opening the doors Looking ahead, Buckingham says there is a “digital layer to the world now” and all the digital twins will start to come together, such as in complex city models that include
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