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UKAEA-CCFE-PR(23)1852023
Piping systems that transport coolant and breeding fluid are naturally an essential part of the support system of the nuclear fusion power plants. Following a campaign of operations, the reactor is required to be shut down and maintained entirely. Pipes connected to the reactor components are to be cut, re-welded or re-joined, and inspected non-des…
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UKAEA-RACE-CP(23)122023
Fukushima Daiichi decommissioning is a long-term engineering challenge, of which advanced control techniques are essentially demanded. In the past ten years, the success in various decommissioning operations demonstrates the importance of elaborating state-of-the-art control and automation technologies. However, there are still various control engi…
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UKAEA-RACE-CP(23)092023
When transferring a Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) model from simulation to the real world, the performance could be unsatisfactory since the simulation cannot imitate the real world well in many circumstances. This results in a long period of fine-tuning in the real world. This paper proposes a self-supervised vision-based DRL method that al…
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UKAEA-RACE-PR(22)062022
The maturation of Virtual Reality software introduces new avenues of nuclear decommissioning research. Digital Mockups are an emerging technology which provide a virtual representation of the environment, objects or processes, supporting the whole lifecycle of product development and operations. This paper provides a survey on currently available …
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UKAEA-RACE-PR(22)032022
For robotic systems involved in challenging environments it is crucial to be able to 2 identify faults as early as possible. In challenging environments it is not always possible to explore 3 all of the fault space, thus anomalous data can act as a broader surrogate, where a anomaly 4 may represent a fault or a predecessor to a fault. This paper…
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UKAEA-RACE-PR(22)022022
In robotic teleoperation, the knowledge of the state of the remote environment in real-time is a paramount. Advances in the development of highly accurate 3D cameras able to provide high quality point clouds appear to be a feasible solution for generating live, up-to-date virtual environments. Unfortunately, the exceptional accuracy and high densit…
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UKAEA-RACE-PR(22)042022
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 perfor…
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UKAEA-RACE-PR(23)022021
Maintenance and inspection systems for future fusion power plants (e.g., STEP and DEMO) are expected to require the integration of hundreds of systems from multiple suppliers, with lifetime expectancies of several decades, where requirements evolve over time and obsolescence management is required. There are significant challenges associated wit…
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UKAEA-RACE-CP(23)022021
Robotic systems that enable the operators to remotely manipulate delicate materials with high dexterity and sufficient force feedback will pave the path for improvements of the safe maintenance and decommissioning processes within the nuclear industry. Training the operators, however, for challenging conditions (e.g., low visibility, restricted …
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UKAEA-RACE-CP(23)012021
Nuclear power, conceived during the second world war as a mass destruction technology, has now become the primer technology aiming at low-carbon emission source of energy. Furthermore, the joining of the once divided West and East has led to a worldwide research ground that involves not only physics or chemistry but many other engineering fields…
Showing 11 - 20 of 32 UKAEA Paper Results