Development of a robotic system for the automation of the decontamination process of nuclear power plants
Authors: Kazemi Siavash , Gentes Sascha 
Published: September 2023

Abstract. As part of Phase II of the ROBDEKON (Robotersysteme für die Dekontamination in menschenfeindlichen Umgebungen) project, funded by the German
Federal Ministry of Education and Research
(BMBF), an automated process chain for the decommissioning process of
nuclear power plants is being developed at the Karlsruhe
Institute of Technology
Institute of Technology and Management in Construction (KIT-TMB). In this
project, technical solutions for the autonomous
environmental exploration and detection of radioactive contamination,
modeling and digitization with building information
modeling (BIM), automatic decontamination, and contamination measurement have
been developed. The aim of the research
is to develop universal, robot-based solutions for a complete, automated
decontamination process that can be flexibly
adapted to changing environmental conditions. In the following, the third
process step, the automated decontamination, is
described in more detail. The basis for the automated decontamination system is
a mobile platform. For the transformation of
the platform into an automated decontamination system, it is first equipped
with the necessary components. The control unit
(PLC) is connected via a gateway to the sensors required to determine the
position of the manipulator and motor controllers.
The motor controllers send back essential information, such as motor current,
motor voltage, and motor temperature, to the
PLC. To locate the decontamination system in its environment, two safe lidar
sensors are attached to the platform. The
lidar sensors provide the positions of the decontamination system with
respect to a reference coordinate system in the PLC.
In addition, the lidar sensors are capable of detecting people in
the vicinity of the decontamination system and, if
necessary, generating a warning signal to prevent an accident. Furthermore,
the platform is equipped with additional safety
sensors that also generate a warning signal in case of danger. The warning
signals are transmitted to the PLC. In the
case of a warning
signal, the decontamination system stops and either waits until the situation is safe
again or selects a different trajectory to the target
point. The decontamination system will operate in teleoperation and
automatic mode. For this purpose, a user-friendly
interface will be developed so that users can operate the system without
deep technical knowledge. For the investigation and
decontamination of flat wall structures in a nuclear facility, two tools
were developed that can be mounted on the robot
platform: an automatic milling tool and a tool for detecting and measuring
radioactive contamination. As part of the planned
presentation at safeND 2023, a brief introduction to the automated
decommissioning chain will be given first. Furthermore,
the current design of the decommissioning system, as the third step in the
chain, and the pending sensor integration will be
presented. Subsequently, the control concepts required for automation, the
concepts for trajectory planning that have to be programmed on the PLC,
will be presented.