ICE: Intelligence in Challenging Environments

RAS technology has many applications in demanding, hazardous and confined environments in industries such as nuclear, aerospace and fusion, where humans currently conduct 100% of inspections and interventions directly. There are significant drivers for using RAS technology in nuclear and aerospace environments, including reduced costs, increased production rates and improvements to the quality and profitability currently achievable using manual methods. Snake-arm robots are highly flexible and ideal for inspection and operations in complex and challenging environments. Building upon existing snake-arm hardware, this project will develop an intelligent system capable of identifying features/objects of interest, carrying out appropriate activities on the features and then presenting the data with augmented-reality, with tagged locations and all without human intervention.