Veolia Nuclear Solutions will supply a twin-arm haptic manipulator to UKAEA to deliver key aspects of the LongOps project. The LongOps programme will support the delivery of faster and safer decommissioning at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan and at Sellafield in the UK. The programme is funded equally by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO).
Our system is a force feedback robotic manipulator complete with electrical and control systems, to allow an operator to intuitively perform dexterous and complex tasks in a hazardous environment from a remote and safe location. This contract builds on Veolia Nuclear Solutions strong capabilities within long reach robotics and haptic manipulators which have been developed in both the nuclear fusion and nuclear decommissioning industries.
Veolia Nuclear Solutions core competences in remote handling technology has been demonstrated through its heritage from the remote handling campaign at UKAEA/JET, where Veolia Nuclear Solutions engineers delivered the first remote handling campaign inside a Tokamak fusion reactor. More recently, we have been supporting MHI and TEPCO on the fuel debris retrieval project at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 with a bespoke boom-type robotic arm system backed by a haptic manipulator that will investigate the location of fuel debris.