Nuclear Safety & Decommissioning: Revolutionising Extreme Environments with 0% Risk

An Innovative System for the Nuclear Industry

Our teleoperation solutions are the forerunners of today’s most advanced remote systems and have a key purpose:

To safeguard humans in dangerous jobs by enabling workers to use our humanlike robot Hands, instead of their own human hands, for dexterous tasks.

You can use our teleoperation systems in the decommissioning of nuclear sites and remediation of contamination land. For example, we particularly focus on radioactive environments and remote handling in glove boxes as it’s a key risk and concern, for both the operator and employer, should the operator’s skin become exposed to any radiation – and unfortunately, there are cases where it has! Our technology is unique (we own the relevant IP), and unrivalled (it’s a quantum leap from what existing telerobots can do today).

How Does it Work?

1. The teleoperation solution is set-up at the desired location. In cases of a glove box, the Shadow Hand component inserts into existing glove ports.

2. The operator wears a glove with motion tracking capability which allows them to control the Shadow Hand at a safe distance, from a control room or even another vicinity.

3. The robot mimics the operator’s hand and arm movements, handling hazardous materials, so they don’t need to.

We can offer touch feedback (if preferred) with our Tactile Telerobot, which allows the operator to feel what they’re handling for better accuracy.

Key Benefits:

1. 0% risk to the worker
2. No dose exposure
3. More operational hours and more speed
4. Eliminate restrictive personal protective equipment (PPE)
5. Vision and touch feedback to enable more precision and accuracy
6. Reduce the cost of equipment maintenance and significant secondary waste
7. Reduce footprint (compared to humans)
8. Reduce training overhead
9. Can work alongside machine vision
10. New technology to encourage millennial recruits

We’d be happy to discuss other extreme environments that you feel would benefit from remote teleoperation. Don’t worry if you’re not sure how exactly, it all starts with an idea! Some other industries we’ve been exploring include deep sea, oil & gas and bomb disposal.

Wary of Introducing New Technology?

Robots are recognised alternatives all over the globe in reducing the need for sending workers into hazardous areas.

Our system can fit a range of glove boxes and can install within a company at minimal cost with little to no interruption to your workers. It does not require you to change any significant industry procedures or regulations within your company, and you wouldn’t need to invest money in retraining your staff as our teleoperation solutions are easy to use.

We ship worldwide, and we would work with you initially to develop the technology for your exact purposes.

Proof of Concept:

National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL)

We’ve talked to and worked with NNL, a UK government-owned and operated nuclear services technology provider leading the world in nuclear innovation. It is the only UK organisation able to provide technical support across the whole nuclear industry.

NNL talk about the radiation tolerance of Shadow’s hardware in their recent “Enhanced Glovebox Operations Overview” report, and state that the Shadow Hand is an innovative system having:

A number of advantages to robotic teleoperation, both from a control and an operator’s point of view – NNL

Alpha Glovebox Decommissioning Challenge

We embarked on a highly-skilled project with four leading companies, including NNL. We demonstrated that we could further safeguard workers by using lasers and autonomous grasping to cut up, and dispose of, decommissioned alpha gloveboxes and legacy crates that have become contaminated with alpha emitters. With a commitment to hazard reduction, we were able to remove the human operator from a high-risk procedure, improve productivity and improve the efficiency of waste packing. You can read more about the project and each partner’s contribution here.

WIRED Exclusive:

In an exclusive for WIRED magazine, we successfully trialled haptic feedback across the Atlantic, from California to London. Watch the demo here.

One of the greatest promises of advanced robotics: keeping humans out of dangerous situations – Matt Simon, WIRED

Key Events:

Game Changers Robotics at Sellafield and Atkins Nuclear Technology 2019 Showcase:

The Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Nuclear (RAIN) Hub, in collaboration with Game Changers, held a robotics showcase at Sellafield (responsible for the safe and secure operation and clean-up of the Sellafield nuclear site, close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England). Here, we demonstrated the level of dexterity and manipulation ability of our Tactile Telerobot system.

We demoed a similar set-up at the Atkins Nuclear Technology Showcase event. Atkins offers the full range of services for the decommissioning and remediation of nuclear sites and facilities, management of spent nuclear fuel, the transportation of nuclear material and the environmental clean-up of nuclear legacy sites. You can read more about our participation in this news article.

We’re here if you’d like to discuss more around our remote teleoperation systems. You can come and see it in action too.

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