Service robots for nuclear safety: New developments by Cybernetix

As nuclear powerplants age, maintenance tasks become more critical and more dangerous. In most Western countries today, and perhaps even more in the former East Block the nuclear safety management becomes a major issue. ii? the next couple of years, strategic decisions have to be made regarding the nuclear waste management and the dismantling of old equipment. Sadly, most of the dirty work is still clone by humans and not by robots. The robotics community has achieved many breakthroughs in the last decade, thanks to the progress of computing power, but their impact has been small in the domain of nuclear intervention Radiation tolerance implies heavy shielding, which in turn reduces the flexibility of the machine. Looking ahead and striving for a better world, CY-BERNETIX has been bringing together the latest advances in radiation-hard electronics, spread-spectrum transmissions and telecontrol technology, onto a single, modular, mobile platform. We present in this paper the state of the project and point out the many innovations which have been necessary. We conclude with a short survey of the market, and a tentative glimpse in the future.