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, such as robotics, programming, and more recently artificial intelligence (AI) to make fusion energy a reliable source.

Recent advances in robotics and communications have allowed performing risky tasks such as handling, maintenance and decommissioning using teleoperation, applying unilateral or bilateral control. With recent developments in graphics processing, together with highly accurate 3D sensing devices capable of providing high-quality point cloud data at high frame rates, the creation of live virtual environments for aiding remote handling, maintenance and inspection is now a possibility at a cheaper cost. However, in a nuclear teleoperation scenario, the real-time transmission of large high-resolution point cloud data still represents a challenge due to bandwidth limitations combined with far geographical locations.

This paper addresses the challenges in teleoperation with regards to its viewing systems. We also discuss what virtual reality and synthetic viewing are, and how these technologies can be used to improve the user experience of remote operators in the nuclear industry. Lastly, we discuss current work conducted in the UKAEA to address the challenges of integrating real-time synthetic viewing into teleoperated systems.