Sellafield nuclear power plant has commenced a groundbreaking trial utilizing a four-legged robot named Spot, manufactured by Boston Dynamics, equipped with an innovative tool known as RAICo. This program will help improve the public monitoring of radiation levels around the facility. Beyond that, it will deliver a safer and faster approach to performing critical safety evaluations.
The RAICo tool, which is intended to be used with Spot, works by swabbing surfaces around the plant. It has a huge, stretchable nephron, too. This robotic arm features a specialized yellow swabbing tool that enables targeted sampling of high-hazard surfaces. Smart swabbing The combination of new haptic feedback technology means swabbing operators will get robust physical feedback throughout the swabbing workflow. This feature provides greater control and precision, making it easier to gather more exact data on radiation levels.
Deon Bulman, who manages the Spokane plant’s remotely operated vehicle apparatus, stressed the benefits of utilizing Spot, specifically in risky environments. As he described, the robot’s agility and responsiveness as an autonomous robot allows it to go anywhere humans might not be safely able to work. According to Bulman, “those capabilities support faster, safer, and more cost-effective decommissioning operations.”
The Sellafield health physics team takes hundreds of swabs each day. They conduct their work in support of policies that set the highest safety standards possible and inform smart decommissioning strategies. We’re hopeful that our trial with Spot will optimize these procedures. This fix will make nuclear operations safer and more efficient.
Spot currently is undergoing tests at Sellafield. This comes after a successful preliminary trial at the Joint European Torus facility based in Culham, Oxfordshire. That previous experiment was an opportunity to develop and deploy new fusion technology and exemplified the power of robotics in advanced nuclear environments. Dr. Kirsty Hewitson, the director of RAICo, noted that the ongoing trials represent “pushing forward the adoption of advanced robotics in the nuclear sector,” highlighting the significance of these developments for future operations.
Once the trial gets underway, the team at Sellafield will assess how well Spot and RAICo perform in keeping an eye on radiation levels. Taken together, these results may pave the way for even greater applications of robotics to ensure nuclear safety. More importantly, they might do better to improve decommissioning across the industry.