On indigenous design of prototypic tele-operated mobile robot for ventilation duct inspection in nuclear power plants

Use of robots in a nuclear power plant (NPP) is limited due to stringent safety considerations, however, they may be quite effective for auxiliary operations such as inspecting ducts, confined spaces, and places where there exists radiological hazard for a human operator. In this paper, we first review the present use of robots in nuclear industry followed by our report on the indigenous design and development of a prototypic tele-operated mobile robot. The proposed robot is identified for ventilation duct inspection in NPPs. Progress of present work is promising for actual implementation of the proposed robotic application.