Automated Nuclear Decontamination Cell (AND-C)

Public description
In many nuclear decommissioning facilities, a decontamination cell is used to process transport containers on site so that they can be sentenced to low level waste. A dedicated cell can also be used for decontaminating components such as piping. This is labour intensive work that needs to be carried out using complex Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and there may also be a requirement for air-fed suits. The work is difficult and strenuous resulting in limited time for 'on-the-job' shifts. This in turn leads to the requirement for multiple operational teams as well as support staff and radiation protection staff.

The proposed solution is to remove nuclear workers from this type of hazardous environment by combining Createc's ESP technology for radiation mapping with KUKA's proven nuclear robotic arms. The innovation over manual decontamination or even robotic remote handling is that the 3D radiation contamination map will be transferred directly to the robotic system to guide the arm to the precise location and remove the contamination.

A KUKA robotic arm will carry Createc's radiation mapping sensor pack. The sensor pack utilises a laser scanning system to build up a 3D point cloud of the container and then guide the robotic arm around the surfaces of the container.

The 3D positional information of the contamination can then be translated to the positional system of the KUKA robotic arm. The arm can then carry suitable tooling for mechanically removing the contamination. The arm will also carry a method to extract any air borne secondary contamination.

The main areas of focus for this project will be to enable the Createc sensor pack mounted on the KUKA arm to map the contamination on a container and produce a 3D model with the precise location of the contamination. A prototype cell with a KUKA arm will be developed that can demonstrate a Createc sensor pack producing the 3D contamination model that can be used by the robotic arm to remove the contamination. It is envisaged that a mock-up of a contaminated component will be used for the demonstration. The prototype will show how the arm can move to the contaminated area using the map, but there will be no tooling or demonstration of material removal as part of this project.