Robot Assisted Glovebox Teleoperation for Nuclear Industry

Robot Assisted Glovebox Teleoperation for Nuclear Industry

Robot Assisted Glovebox Teleoperation for Nuclear Industry 150 150 UKAEA Opendata
UKAEA-RACE-PR(22)04

Robot Assisted Glovebox Teleoperation for Nuclear Industry

The nuclear industry has some of the most extreme environments in the world, with radiation levels and extremely harsh conditions restraining human access to many facilities. One method for enabling minimal human exposure to hazards under these conditions is through the use of gloveboxes which are sealed volumes with controlled access for performing handling. While gloveboxes allow operators to perform complex handling tasks, they put operators at considerable risk from breaking the confinement and, historically, serious examples including punctured gloves leading to lifetime doses have occurred. To date, robotic systems have had relatively little impact on the industry, even though it is clear that they offer major opportunities for improving productivity and significantly reducing risks to human health. This work presents the challenges of robotic and AI solutions for nuclear gloveboxes, and introduces an integrated demonstrator proposed for robotic handling in nuclear gloveboxes for nuclear material handling. The proposed approach spans from tele-manipulation to shared autonomy, computer vision solutions for robotic manipulation to machine learning solution for condition monitoring.

Collection:
Journals
Journal:
Robotics
Publisher:
MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)
Published date:
03/07/2021