Hazardous area robotics for nuclear systems maintenance: a challenge in reliability

It is noted that cost and safety factors dictate that many hazardous tasks be automated, yet the attendant complexity and environmental uncertainty associated with this automation provides formidable obstacles to reliable operation. Observations which are based on the author´s experience and responsibilities in the nuclear power plant inspection and repair industry are given. The author notes that this area of application deserves consideration because extensive experience is accumulating from various projects which may be vitally relevant to similar automation efforts for hazardous environments in other industries. The evolution of a prototype robotic system is examined along with lessons learned. Particular emphasis was placed on the use of robots to repair steam generators in pressurized water reactor plants. It is concluded that the success of automation ventures in steam-generator repair has been mixed. Largely, the projects have reduced radiation exposure significantly and have demonstrated improved schedule performance over the original manual approaches