Iain Darby, “Grand Challenges in Robotics for Nuclear Environments: Radioactivity Measurements”

In May of this year the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society Technical Committee for Robotics for Nuclear Environments issued a call to action for Grand Challenges in Robotics for Nuclear Environments at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) held in Atlanta.

As noted by the committee, [1] “The last decade has seen significant progress in the development and use of robots in nuclear environments across fission, fusion, and big science facilities. Whilst much of the early application focus was on decommissioning and disaster response in highly radioactive environments, this has shifted significantly to encompass day-to-day operations and maintenance in low-radiation areas. …”

Parallel with the robotics developments, the deployment of portable and mobile radiation detection systems has enabled unprecedented levels of sensitivity to be achieved outwith of the laboratory environment; and this has been matched with the dizzying speed of progress for mobile computational power in the same period.

Arriving now, and with further rapid developments on the near horizon, the application of sophisticated machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches to signal processing, data fusion and pattern recognition on mobile or remote platforms (with high performance battery or low power requirements) forecasts another decade of rapid change and performance developments.

In this talk I will echo the RAS TC robotics call, and present case studies and challenge cases on the detection and measurement requirements for the decommissioning, new build advanced nuclear technologies and fusion sectors; and the interaction of the resulting data and system requirements to the robotics platforms.

[1] https://www.ieee-ras.org/robotics-and-automation-in-nuclear-facilities/activities

Dr Iain Darby is Head of Strategic Research for the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory. Iain is responsible for the Science & Technology Strategic Research pillar to deliver targeted collaborative interventions sustaining skills and developing capabilities to address key national challenges. He serves as chair of the Global National Laboratories Integrated Energy Systems (GNLIES) collaboration and chairs for UKNNL the IAEA-UKNNL Collaboration Centre on the Advanced Fuel Cycle.

Prior to joining UKNNL, Iain was Head of the Nuclear Science & Instrumentation Laboratory at the IAEA Laboratories Seibersdorf, Austria. On returning to the UK Iain joined NRS Dounreay where he led Research Development & Innovation activities and served as co-chair of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Nuclear Waste and Decommissioning Research Forum (NWDRF).

Iain is a chartered physicist and member of the Institute of Physics, the Nuclear Institute, the Society for Radiological Protection and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and holds a honorary researcher position with the School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Glasgow. He received both his Master’s degree in Astrophysics and a PhD in Nuclear Physics from Liverpool University.