Ronan Kelly Guy Burroughes Robert Skilton Jonathan Naish
The operation of nuclear fusion facilities must be carefully planned and monitored due to the potential damage to equipment or personnel caused by radiation fields. A method for visualising such three-dimensional (3D) radiation fields in real-time is presented. An interactive volumetric representation is achieved using view-dependent ray casting of…
Preprint PublishedDaniel Butters Emil T. Jonasson Robert Stuart-Smith Vijay M. Pawar
Remote inspection of a complex environment is a difficult, time consuming task for human operators to perform. The need to manually avoid obstacles whilst considering other performance factors i.e. time taken, joint effort and information gained represents significant challenges to continuous operation. This paper proposes an autonomous robotic so…
Preprint PublishedIain Farquhar James Davies Oliver Crofts Tony Loving
One of the major challenge in the commercialisation of fusion is maintaining the powerplant reactor in a sufficiently short period of time to achieve commercial levels of plant availability. To inform the development of an appropriate remote maintenance strategy for EU DEMO, a simplified, parametric model, called the Maintenance Duration Estimator …
Preprint PublishedGuy Burroughes Rob Skilton Jean-Jacque Honore Rob Buckingham
This paper presents the methodology and results of developing and implementing a system-of-systems architecture for controlling many robotic systems within the context of industrial facilities, where the life of the facility will be far longer than the life of the robotics, due to software updates and accelerated digital obsolescence. The use cases…
Preprint PublishedGuy Burroughes
The European Spallation Source (ESS) is a multi-disciplinary research facility which will be the world’s most powerful pulsed neutron source. A critical component of ESS will be a facility for handling radioactive waste and preparing it for safe disposal. Safe disposal of ESS waste requires the dexterous tele-manipulation of large, highly activat…
Preprint PublishedBarry Preston Guy Burroughes Matt Goodliffe Rob Skilton
Nuclear decommissioning environments are challenging and hazardous, typically involving high temperatures, pressures and extreme radiation. Robotic devices are commonly used to complete tasks within challenging environments, which would otherwise pose a risk to human health, however remotely operating robots without full three-dimensional vision is…
Preprint PublishedS. Kirk K. Keogh W. Suder T. Tremethick C. Allen I. Farquhar
The maintenance, replacement and decommissioning of future nuclear fusion reactors will require quick and reliable cutting and joining of in-vessel pipework. Initial design studies for nuclear fusion reactors for power generation have estimated cutting and welding could account for up to 60% of the maintenance duration using conventional in-situ pr…
Preprint PublishedG. Bongiovì S. Grazioso S. Jimenez
Systems Engineering (SE) allows addressing the design of complex systems from a holistic standpoint, starting from the early stage of development until the end of its lifetime. Using a SE approach, all the stakeholders’ needs can be considered, and different design alternatives can be proposed, taking into account requirements coming from all the…
Preprint PublishedC. Lamb G. Staunton
The first advanced robot many of us will experience may well be an autonomous vehicle (or driverless car). Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology has made huge strides in recent years moving from a mainstay of science fiction to the first forays on public roads. The promise in AV stems from a wide range of potential and perceived benefits, the bigges…
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