Robot deployment in nuclear power plant

The Zwentendorf nuclear power plant, in Austria, was built in the 1970s. However, due to a referendum, it never went into operation. For the fourth time, it provided the perfect backdrop with its meter-thick walls of steel and concrete for the European Robotics Hackathon ("EnRichH"), in which the THI's roboTHIx team, consisting of students and staff from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, led by Prof. Christian Pfitzner, participated.

Robot Frank, on loan from the robotics association Francor e.V., was equipped with additional sensors for better environmental perception as part of the preparations. With its four powered wheels, Frank effortlessly overcomes simple obstacles and reaches a speed of one meter per second in remote-controlled mode. With its robotic arm, Frank can pick up smaller objects or turn a valve closed.

The robots and their teams navigated an unknown course inside the Zwetendorf power plant. The otherwise safe power plant is equipped with several small radioactive radiation sources for the competition, which the robots plot on an environment map. The radiation is harmless to the robots, but their human teammates will be restricted from entering the course from the first day of the competition for safety reasons.

For upcoming missions, Robot Frank is to become increasingly autonomous: "Good environment perception and a high degree of autonomy allow the use of several robots simultaneously. In this way, we can save important time in a real emergency," explains Prof. Pfitzner.

Even when all nuclear power plants in Germany have been dismantled, robots like Frank will still be important: The radioactive material left behind will need to be continuously monitored. Robots can help perform maintenance and measurement tasks in a potential repository in the future.