MallARD: An Autonomous Aquatic Surface Vehicle for Inspection and Monitoring of Wet Nuclear Storage Facilities
Inspection and monitoring of wet nuclear storage facilities such as spent fuel pools or wet silos is performed for a variety of reasons, including nuclear security and characterisation of storage facilities prior to decommissioning. Until now such tasks have been performed by personnel or, if the ri...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2019-06-01
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| Series: | Robotics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2218-6581/8/2/47 |
| _version_ | 1798039065762725888 |
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| author | Keir Groves Andrew West Konrad Gornicki Simon Watson Joaquin Carrasco Barry Lennox |
| author_facet | Keir Groves Andrew West Konrad Gornicki Simon Watson Joaquin Carrasco Barry Lennox |
| author_sort | Keir Groves |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Inspection and monitoring of wet nuclear storage facilities such as spent fuel pools or wet silos is performed for a variety of reasons, including nuclear security and characterisation of storage facilities prior to decommissioning. Until now such tasks have been performed by personnel or, if the risk to health is too high, avoided. Tasks are often repetitive, time-consuming and potentially dangerous, making them suited to being performed by an autonomous robot. Previous autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) have been designed for operation in natural outdoor environments and lack the localisation and tracking accuracy necessary for operation in a wet nuclear storage facility. In this paper the environmental and operational conditions are analysed, applicable localisation technologies selected and a unique aquatic autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) is designed and constructed. The ASV developed is holonomic, uses a LiDAR for localisation and features a robust trajectory tracking controller. In a series of experiments the mean error between the present ASV’s planned path and the actual path is approximately 1 cm, which is two orders of magnitude lower than previous ASVs. As well as lab testing, the ASV has been used in two deployments, one of which was in an active spent fuel pool. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T21:48:46Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a14d7e5cb784483ab7b9d828e353a6a6 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2218-6581 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T21:48:46Z |
| publishDate | 2019-06-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Robotics |
| spelling | doaj.art-a14d7e5cb784483ab7b9d828e353a6a62022-12-22T04:01:20ZengMDPI AGRobotics2218-65812019-06-01824710.3390/robotics8020047robotics8020047MallARD: An Autonomous Aquatic Surface Vehicle for Inspection and Monitoring of Wet Nuclear Storage FacilitiesKeir Groves0Andrew West1Konrad Gornicki2Simon Watson3Joaquin Carrasco4Barry Lennox5School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UKSchool of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UKSchool of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UKSchool of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UKSchool of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UKSchool of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UKInspection and monitoring of wet nuclear storage facilities such as spent fuel pools or wet silos is performed for a variety of reasons, including nuclear security and characterisation of storage facilities prior to decommissioning. Until now such tasks have been performed by personnel or, if the risk to health is too high, avoided. Tasks are often repetitive, time-consuming and potentially dangerous, making them suited to being performed by an autonomous robot. Previous autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) have been designed for operation in natural outdoor environments and lack the localisation and tracking accuracy necessary for operation in a wet nuclear storage facility. In this paper the environmental and operational conditions are analysed, applicable localisation technologies selected and a unique aquatic autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) is designed and constructed. The ASV developed is holonomic, uses a LiDAR for localisation and features a robust trajectory tracking controller. In a series of experiments the mean error between the present ASV’s planned path and the actual path is approximately 1 cm, which is two orders of magnitude lower than previous ASVs. As well as lab testing, the ASV has been used in two deployments, one of which was in an active spent fuel pool.https://www.mdpi.com/2218-6581/8/2/47ASVunmanned surface vehicleautonomous surface vehicleUSVnuclear fuel storagespent fuel poolextreme environmentnuclear robotics |
| spellingShingle | Keir Groves Andrew West Konrad Gornicki Simon Watson Joaquin Carrasco Barry Lennox MallARD: An Autonomous Aquatic Surface Vehicle for Inspection and Monitoring of Wet Nuclear Storage Facilities Robotics ASV unmanned surface vehicle autonomous surface vehicle USV nuclear fuel storage spent fuel pool extreme environment nuclear robotics |
| title | MallARD: An Autonomous Aquatic Surface Vehicle for Inspection and Monitoring of Wet Nuclear Storage Facilities |
| title_full | MallARD: An Autonomous Aquatic Surface Vehicle for Inspection and Monitoring of Wet Nuclear Storage Facilities |
| title_fullStr | MallARD: An Autonomous Aquatic Surface Vehicle for Inspection and Monitoring of Wet Nuclear Storage Facilities |
| title_full_unstemmed | MallARD: An Autonomous Aquatic Surface Vehicle for Inspection and Monitoring of Wet Nuclear Storage Facilities |
| title_short | MallARD: An Autonomous Aquatic Surface Vehicle for Inspection and Monitoring of Wet Nuclear Storage Facilities |
| title_sort | mallard an autonomous aquatic surface vehicle for inspection and monitoring of wet nuclear storage facilities |
| topic | ASV unmanned surface vehicle autonomous surface vehicle USV nuclear fuel storage spent fuel pool extreme environment nuclear robotics |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2218-6581/8/2/47 |
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