Alice Cryer Alfie Sargent Fumiaki Abe Paul Dominick Baniqued Ipek Caliskanelli Hasan Kivrak Hanlin Niu Salvador Pacheco-Gutierrez Alexandros Plianos Masaki Sakamoto Tomoki Sakaue Wataru Sato Shu Shirai Yoshimasa Sugawara Harun Tugal Myles Verdon Andika Yudha Robert Skilton
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 …
PreprintOzan Tokatli Pragna Das Radhika Nath Luigi Pangione Alessandro Altobelli Guy Burroughes Robert Skilton
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…
Preprint PublishedEmil 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 PublishedIpek Caliskanelli Matthew Goodliffe Craig Whiffin Michail Xymitoulias Edward Whittaker Swapnil Verma Craig Hickman Chen Minghao Robert Skilton
In the worlds of nuclear energy, mining, petrochemical processing, and sub-sea, robots are being used for an increasing number and range of tasks. This is resulting in ever more complex robotics installations being deployed, maintained, and extended over long periods of time. Additionally, the unstructured, experimental, or unknown operational c…
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 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 …
PreprintEmil 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 PublishedRonan 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 Published