Our Sellafield - May 2021

Business Our Manifesto Environment Safety 11 WE CARE ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENT The use of robots has already proven they can keep our people safe – but there is still potential for them to help speed up the mission, making Sellafield safer, sooner – whilst also contributing towards delivering some of the NDA’s grand challenges. It’s a compelling vision and shows how Sellafield’s 70-year legacy was tailor-made for today’s technology. In water, we need our robots to scour our ponds, pick up and cut material and then sort the nuclear inventory sitting underneath the surface. We’re currently developing “tetherless” underwater robots with basic artificial intelligence, which can move around our ponds with minimal human intervention – and without the usual heavy connection that can get caught and impede operations. On land, we require robots that can be lowered into hard-to-reach areas such as the silos and compartments we use to store waste, and then operate in what can be extremely toxic environments for significant periods of time. Initiatives such as the Innovate UK Integrated Innovation for Nuclear Decommissioning competitions are developing capabilities to allow waste to be remotely characterised, dismantled and decommission cells in-situ. The recently launched Long Arm Operations (LongOps) programme will be a collaborative step forward with NDA, RACE and Tepco in undertaking remote decommissioning at Sellafield. We continue to work with our colleagues in the National Nuclear Laboratory and supply chain to develop solutions. The newly developed remote operated vehicle (ROV) had to negotiate a 30- metre vertical drop before travelling through a 20m inspection route around obstacles, all this whilst in a gamma radiation field 10 times the highest radiation levels usually found in our hot cells. The ROV they built – with extra tough components and extra radiation shielding – has now been successfully tested, giving us a better understanding of the store condition, and evidence we can use to plan future stores. It is also fully reusable and can be sent back in to check on possible degradation over time. And in the air, we have identified drones that can carry out detailed infrastructure inspections quickly and safely, at a reduced cost. The inclusion of artificial intelligence means that they can operate independently and spot degradation much sooner. The UAV team at Sellafield has been at the forefront of developing and trialling flights beyond visual line of sight in the UK with sees.ai and the Civil Aviation Authority. With robots being such a fundamental part of our future, and new opportunities for their use being identified all the time, the robotics team has set up a new incubator, The Robotics and AI Centre in nearby Whitehaven. It is a joint venture by Sellafield Ltd with the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Remote Applications in Challenging Environments programme, RACE, the National Nuclear Laboratory, NNL and University of Manchester. Rav added: “The Robotics and AI Centre will enable us to collaborate with our partners on innovation and R&D in solving real challenges the under one roof and bring together the work being done by robots across Sellafield and build on the opportunities they offer. This will be the stepping stone to realising greater benefits for a much larger Robotics and AI Collaborative space in West Cumbria.” A stakeholder engagement event to talk about the future of Robotics and AI in West Cumbria takes place on 13 May. If you want to know more about our robotics plans, contact Rav Chunilal for more details ravindra.b.chunilal@sellafieldsites.com.