Emil T. Jonasson Jonathan Beouf Stephen Kyberd Robert Skilton
Just like most industrial or scientific installations, future fusion reactors will require more or less frequent maintenance. The expected environmental conditions, as well as the necessity of carrying out many maintenance tasks in parallel in result in remote robotic maintenance becoming a necessity in order to minimize the maintenance shutdown du…
Preprint PublishedEmil T. Jonasson Luis Ramos Pinto Alberto Vale Robert Skilton
Sensor technologies will play a key role in the success of Remote Maintenance (RM) systems for future fusion reactors such as ITER and DEMO. Understanding their limitations and suitability for use in a fusion context is crucial to the operation and maintenance of these reactors. In this paper, we evaluate three key types of sensor which are of p…
Preprint PublishedR Skilton Y Gao
Present inspection techniques in place at the Joint European Torus (JET), as well as some of those planned for ITER make use of robotically deployed inspection systems, which typically collect data for offline analysis. This can be a slow, laborious process with subjective or error-prone results. There are significant benefits to be gained through …
Preprint PublishedAlessandro Altobelli Ozan Tokatli Robert Skilton
In the last decades, several approaches have been presented to accomplish tasks with a robot or autonomous systems in a glovebox, nevertheless, in nuclear facilities, risky operations are still executed by humans that guarantee a high manipulation capability and dexterity. Inside the gloveboxes, robotic devices have to operate in cluttered envir…
PreprintSalvador Pacheco-Gutierrez Ipek Caliskanelli Robert Skilton
Remote handling systems are commonly used for decommissioning and maintenance of hazardous environments, specially in the nuclear sector. The necessity for a more realistic and accurate user interaction with the remote environment has led research towards the usage of immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality. In order for thi…
Preprint PublishedRobert Skilton Guy Burroughes Matt Goodliffe
Future experimental scientific facilities, energy generation assets, and nuclear decommissioning facilities will require increasing levels of remote maintenance, which must be facilitated by robotic systems. Moreover, these long-lived (30+ years) maintenance systems will, themselves need to maintained and upgraded in order to deal with lifespan …
PreprintL. Pangione R. Skilton R. Powell
An extensive knowledge of a system’s failures is crucial for identifying areas where the reliability of the system can benefit from improvements, as well as informing the design of new systems. Moreover, relationships between faults and failures can be used to enhance the maintenance of the system. In this paper we present a taxonomy of failure …
Preprint PublishedEmil Jonasson Jonathan Boeuf Stephen Kyberd Robert Skilton Paul Amayo Guy Burroughes Steve Collins
The containment vessel of the Joint European Torus is a huge, complicated assembly with a myriad of components, all of which are important for plasma operation. As a research device, JET has been operated over many years and has been extensively rebuilt. During each maintenance shutdown, inspections and measurements of the Vacuum Vessel are carri…
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 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 Published