Eversion and Growing Robots: Pipe Navigation, Inspection and Characterisation

The key outcome of the PhD project is to develop a robot to navigate, inspect and characterise a highly complex pipework environment with radiological contamination. The stretch goal will be for the robot to successfully deliver and recover an instrument to/from the end of the robot's traversed path.

Eversion robotics for nuclear decommissioning holds the promise of developing novel procedures and instrumentation for inspection, characterisation, manipulation and intervention through, behind and in complex confined contaminated and hazardous spaces including pipes.

Soft robotics employs a different approach offering the possibility to overcome some challenges and possessing novel characteristics. Soft eversion robots are highly flexible, growing into the space available for them, making it possible to navigate through structures of radically different sizes and with complex geometries. The nature of the robots benefits from contact with its surroundings, a feature which can be used to stabilise structures, provide a permanent navigable path for other resources and the possibility of removing or fixing decontamination as part of the navigation.