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Modular Robotics for Delivering On-Site Contamination Sensors and Mapping Systems to Difficult-to-Access Locations--ARM Automation, Inc., 14141 West Highway 290, Suite 700, Austin, TX  78737; 512-894-3534

Dr. Joseph Geisinger, Principal Investigator

Mr. Stephen Grupinski, Business Official

DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-00ER82950

Amount:  $99,677

 

In order to increase worker safety while reducing costs, time and secondary waste generation during the identification of hazardous contamination in Department of Energy sites, robotic systems are needed to carry sensors into hazardous and difficult-to-access environments.  To accomplish this, a wide range of robotic delivery mechanisms are needed which can provide dexterity and large reach while facilitating portability and repairs.  Unfortunately, available robotic manipulators (arms) do not offer the performance solutions and operational characteristics necessary to conduct many of these tasks in an effective manner.  A novel modular system for building custom robots, will be integrated with an on-site, real-time contamination sensing and mapping system to provide a semi-automated and remote means of identifying hazardous contamination (heavy metals, organics and radiological).  The modular robotic system will provide a delivery mechanism with greatly increased reach, mobility and serviceability while being more cost effective and quick to deploy than conventional technology.  A Department of Energy site, scheduled for cleanup, which contains difficult-to-access contamination will be selected to serve as a design target.  A robotic manipulator(s) tailored to the selected task will designed using the modular robot system and integrated with a size-reduced sensor/contaminant mapping system.  This combined system will then be rendered in a graphical simulation to demonstrate this approach and allow its operation to be evaluated.

 

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee:  The combined system resulting from this work can be utilized by commercial nuclear utilities and other governmental cleanup/analysis operations such as military facilities and environmental protection investigations.  Additionally, each of the two core technologies furthered by this work, the modular robotic system and the real-time contaminant sensing and mapping system, have extensive applicability on their own both within and outside of the Department of Energy.  The portable sensor system can provide a virtual field laboratory for applications such as hazardous material identification and bomb detection.  High-performance, field serviceable robotic systems are needed in many areas of cleanup operations, such as decontamination and dismantlement, material segregation and packaging.  The commercial sector stands to benefit from the availability of a modular robotic system that can be used to build custom automation on-demand for the production of goods such as pharmaceuticals, electronics and consumer products.