UAV and robotics projects respond to clean-up challenge

Climbing robots and a new folding drone are among Game Changers projects to receive funding in response to one of the latest Sellafield challenges.

Across the Sellafield site, there are hundreds of nuclear and non-nuclear facilities that need to be cleaned up. Sellafield wants to use an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or robot that can access hazardous facilities to enable safer and cheaper decommissioning.

Of the 20 high quality applications received in response to the UAV challenge, four organisations were each awarded £10k feasibility funding to further explore their technologies:

• Colena Ltd of North Shields – developers of a compact, lightweight UAV with obstacle avoidance technology which can operate in GPS-denied environments;
• Ice Nine Ltd (Stockport) – creators of a small UAV system capable of accessing hard to reach, confined areas through an access port with a diameter of less than 150mm;
• Headlight Al (London/Brighton) – developers of a new semi-autonomous drone solution called FlyCell, for deployment and inspection of nuclear cells via inspection ports;
• Birmingham-based HausBots build climbing robots for inspection of critical infrastructure. Their unique hardware platform allows their robots to crawl on any surface including concrete, brick and metal, providing revolutionary 3D inspection data.

Each of the four will develop their projects in a bid to provide Sellafield with a UAV or robot that can access hazardous facilities whilst carrying a range of sensors and other analytical tools. Sellafield constantly seeks ways of carrying out decommissioning faster, cheaper and safer. The aim of this challenge is to develop a UAV or robotic modular toolkit that can be easily adapted for deployment in a wide range of decommissioning scenarios.

The feasibility phase of the projects is expected to conclude in the spring.