Abstract
Nuclear decommissioning is a global challenge with high costs associated with it due to the hazardous environments created by radioactive materials. Most nuclear decommissioning sites contain significant amounts of pipework, the majority of which is uncharacterised with regards radioactive contamination. If there is any uncertainty as to the contamination status of a pipe, it must be treated as contaminated waste, which can lead to very high disposal costs. To overcome this challenge, an in-pipe autonomous robot for characterisation is being developed. One of the most significant mechatronic challenges with the development of such a robot is the detection of elbows in the unknown pipe networks to allow the robotic system to autonomously navigate around them. This paper presents a novel method of predicting the direction and radius of the corner using whisker-like sensors. Experiments have shown that the proposed system has a mean error of 4.69∘ in the direction estimation.
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Acknowledgements
This project is supported by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) Project Ref: 1636964 and Sellafield Ltd.
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Brown, L., Carrasco, J., Watson, S. et al. Elbow Detection in Pipes for Autonomous Navigation of Inspection Robots. J Intell Robot Syst 95, 527–541 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-018-0904-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-018-0904-7