Wenxing Liu Hanlin Niu Wei Pan Guido Herrmann Joaquin Carrasco
Sim-and-real training is a promising alternative to sim-to-real training for robot manipulations. However, the current sim-and-real training is neither efficient, i.e., slow convergence to the optimal policy, nor effective, i.e., sizeable real-world robot data. Given limited time and hardware budgets, the performance of sim-and-real training is …
PurchaseKwame Akowua Lee Aucott David Wallis Raphael Hery Remi Carrat Emmanuel Brau Chris Lamb Heather Lewtas Helena Livesey.
ITER In-Vessel Components (IVCs) will have limited lifetimes and need to be maintained and/or replaced during the operational life of ITER. IVCs are attached to the plant cooling water system via pipework to enable active cooling of the components during plasma operations. When maintenance is required, Remote Handling Systems (RHS) will be used …
PublishedAndre Farinha Salua Hamaza Guy Bouroughes Mirko Kovac
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have been shown to improve data gathering processes over large spacial and temporal scales at a low cost [1], as well as the automation of decision making processes in complex industrial settings [2]. The nuclear sector is no exception to this, being obvious applications structural health monitoring [3] and radiation…
PreprintN. Petkov H. Wu R. Powell
Calibration data for condition monitoring (CM), often originates from equipment running in different environment conditions, and operational settings. Due to the uneven distribution of the data, the performance of traditional machine learning approaches for CM can easily be skewed in favour of operating conditions with larger data distributions.…
PreprintHarun Tugal Salvador Pacheco-Gutierrez Myles Verdon Ipek Caliskanelli Alfie Sargent Alice Cryer Ronan Kelly Alexandros Plianos Andika Yudha Qasim Kapasi Robert Skilton
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 …
Preprint PurchaseD. McGarrigle E. Flynn C. Kennedy A. Loving S. Budden
This paper reports on a study of the existing or proposed maintenance arm systems with similar functions and structure to that of the proposed DEMO Multi-Purpose Deployer (MPD).The current MPD design iteration consists of a boom deployment system that is ~30m long and can support a payload of ~1000kg, while still being able to access the DEMO va…
Preprint PublishedJoshua Blake Guy Burroughes Kaiqiang Zhang
This paper describes a novel automatic solution for toolchanging operations using dexterous teleoperated robots in a nuclear glovebox. This solution can identify and locate tools in the nuclear glovebox by visually tracking augmented reality (AR) tags online at a low computational cost. The solution is designed in a modular manner taking into ac…
PurchaseIpek Caliskanelli Matthew Goodliffe Craig Whiffin Michail Xymitoulias Edward Whittaker Swapnil Verma Robert Skilton
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…
PreprintS. Pacheco-Gutierrez I. Caliskanelli R. Skilton
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…
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…
Preprint