Mosaicing for Automatic Pipe Scanning (MAPS)

Nine of the ten current UK nuclear power stations are scheduled to close within the next 20 years. Visual inspections can be used to quantify the condition of existing plant with the intention of extending their lifetime to ensure a continued reliable response to energy demand. DPS provide an inspection service within the UK and global nuclear markets and have found that existing inspection technology’s main limitation is its inability to accurately and repeatedly locate and characterise defects in the structures under examination. The proposed project will produce and evaluate a remote visual interface that will allow the surface detail of power plant structures to be analysed in an interactive 3D environment. This will allow a more accurate inspection of defects to be performed and repeated, and to be compared with data from previous inspections. The proposed technology will also minimise an operator's exposure to radiation by allowing data to be analysed offline.