Remote-controlled robot dogs could help decommission the defunct Sellafield nuclear plant after successful trials.
Operators working from the Westlakes Science Park in Whitehaven, around eight miles from Sellafield, remotely operated “safely and securely” a custom Boston Dynamics Spot Quadrupedal Robot ‘dog’ that could carry out tasks such as remote inspections, data gathering and clean-up work.
Energy generation at the plant stopped in 2003, but the painstaking decommissioning process typically takes decades and presents radioactive hazards to workers. Sellafield is unusual in that the decommissioning challenge also encompasses early nuclear research and nuclear weapons programmes that took place on the site.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is not expecting full site remediation to be completed until 2125.
But robotics could now play a major role in future. The latest trial took remote operations a step further by removing the operator from the nuclear site all together, thanks...