Autonomous nuclear waste management

Redundant and non-operational buildings at nuclear sites are decommissioned over a period of time. The process involves demolition of physical infrastructure resulting in large quantities of residual waste material. The resulting waste materials are packed into import containers to be delivered for post-processing, containing either sealed canisters or assortments of miscellaneous objects. At present post-processing does not happen within the United Kingdom. Sellafield Ltd. and National Nuclear Laboratory are developing a process for future operation so that upon an initial inspection, imported waste materials undergo two stages of post-processing before being packed into export containers, namely sort and segregate or sort and disrupt. The post-processing facility will remotely treat and export a wide range of wastes before downstream encapsulation. Certain wastes require additional treatment, such as disruption, before export to ensure suitability for long-term disposal. This article focuses on the design, development, and demonstration of a reconfigurable rational agent-based robotic system that aims to highly automate these processes removing the need for close human supervision. The proposed system is being demonstrated through a downsized, lab-based setup incorporating a small-scale robotic arm, a time-of-flight camera, and high-level rational agent-based decision making and control framework

Technology park in connection with national filing of radioactive waste

The starting project idea arises from the need to provide a national disposal for radioactive waste as required by the European Union, in order to adjust Italy to the rest of the other European countries. The site will replace the temporary disposals realized near to the four former nuclear plants in the Italian territory, to permit plants decommissioning and the subsequent environmental rehabilitation of those areas. The disposal will be realized according to the most modern standards of environmental safety and ensuring maximum sustainability of the site thus using all the ‘Best Available Technique’ for the construction of Near Zero Energy Buildings and energy production systems from renewable sources. The Project is based on data coming from SOGIN (the Italian society for the decommissioning of nuclear plants) for the national radioactive waste disposal able to contain 90,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste and divided into two parts, allowing separate storage of the waste of first and second level, respectively, in quantities of 15.000 mc and 75.000 mc. The Technology Park close to the disposal, will be done with maximum transparency criteria, so to make the site not only accessible to citizens, but even a tourist attraction and a meeting area for the scholars, university students and researchers. In this technological park there are strong requirements for high security systems and an adequate transport and mobility plan designed even for critical situations. In fact in the designed Park there are even special protection systems from physical agents with the possibility, in case of danger, of an access to the closed collection points that are able to insulate workers and visitors from fire or radiation danger

Energy challenges for ICT

The energy consumption from the expanding use of information and communications technology (ICT) is unsustainable with present drivers, and it will impact heavily on the future climate change. However, ICT devices have the potential to contribute signi - cantly to the reduction of CO2 emission and enhance resource e ciency in other sectors, e.g., transportation (through intelligent transportation and advanced driver assistance systems and self-driving vehicles), heating (through smart building control), and manu- facturing (through digital automation based on smart autonomous sensors). To address the energy sustainability of ICT and capture the full potential of ICT in resource e - ciency, a multidisciplinary ICT-energy community needs to be brought together cover- ing devices, microarchitectures, ultra large-scale integration (ULSI), high-performance computing (HPC), energy harvesting, energy storage, system design, embedded sys- tems, e cient electronics, static analysis, and computation. In this chapter, we introduce challenges and opportunities in this emerging eld and a common framework to strive towards energy-sustainable ICT

Exploration technology prioritization

A series of outlines and graphs describing NASA's Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) technology prioritization are presented. Prioritization criteria and preliminary critical technology priorities for a first lunar outpost and a Mars and permanently-manned lunar mission are addressed

Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Conference on NASA/University Advanced Space Design Program

Topics discussed include: lunar transportation system, Mars rover, lunar fiberglass production, geosynchronous space stations, regenerative system for growing plants, lunar mining devices, lunar oxygen transporation system, mobile remote manipulator system, Mars exploration, launch/landing facility for a lunar base, and multi-megawatt nuclear power system

M.I.N.G., Mars Investment for a New Generation: Robotic construction of a permanently manned Mars base

A basic procedure for robotically constructing a manned Mars base is outlined. The research procedure was divided into three areas: environment, robotics, and habitat. The base as designed will consist of these components: two power plants, communication facilities, a habitat complex, and a hangar, a garage, recreation and manufacturing facilities. The power plants will be self-contained nuclear fission reactors placed approx. 1 km from the base for safety considerations. The base communication system will use a combination of orbiting satellites and surface relay stations. This system is necessary for robotic contact with Phobos and any future communication requirements. The habitat complex will consist of six self-contained modules: core, biosphere, science, living quarters, galley/storage, and a sick bay which will be brought from Phobos. The complex will be set into an excavated hole and covered with approximately 0.5 m of sandbags to provide radiation protection for the astronauts. The recreation, hangar, garage, and manufacturing facilities will each be transformed from the four one-way landers. The complete complex will be built by autonomous, artificially intelligent robots. Robots incorporated into the design are as follows: Large Modular Construction Robots with detachable arms capable of large scale construction activities; Small Maneuverable Robotic Servicers capable of performing delicate tasks normally requiring a suited astronaut; and a trailer vehicle with modular type attachments to complete specific tasks; and finally, Mobile Autonomous Rechargeable Transporters capable of transferring air and water from the manufacturing facility to the habitat complex

Research and development at ORNL/CESAR towards cooperating robotic systems for hazardous environments

One of the frontiers in intelligent machine research is the understanding of how constructive cooperation among multiple autonomous agents can be effected. The effort at the Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research (CESAR) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) focuses on two problem areas: (1) cooperation by multiple mobile robots in dynamic, incompletely known environments; and (2) cooperating robotic manipulators. Particular emphasis is placed on experimental evaluation of research and developments using the CESAR robot system testbeds, including three mobile robots, and a seven-axis, kinematically redundant mobile manipulator. This paper summarizes initial results of research addressing the decoupling of position and force control for two manipulators holding a common object, and the path planning for multiple robots in a common workspace