Mobile robots for use in nuclear facilities

The radiation exposure encountered in revisions and demolitions of some areas of nuclear facilities requires the use of remotely operated technical systems in order to avoid the personnel bring exposed in the course of such work. The main activities conducted within such areas include inspecting, measuring, cleaning, cutting, and handling. The Institute for Materials Research (IW) of the University of Hanover, with its twenty years of experience in basic and application-oriented research and development in the field of thermal cutting, especially in plasma fusion cutting, and ten years of development of remotely operated handling systems, offers its services as a partner in solving these problems in nuclear plants. Besides stationary systems, IW has developed also mobile roots and manipulators able to move largely autonomously under remote control within a certain area.