Autonomous Robot For Cleaning Underwater Nuclear Waste

By: | March 29th, 2021

Image courtesy: Forth Engineering/ YouTube

As robots are growing more and more intelligent, they’re emerging not just as powerful tools, but as close companions.

Nowadays autonomous robots function something from soldiers to fruit pickers. During the pandemic, these robots also help us to fight with COVID- 19 viruses.

Now, there is a new autonomous robot that could help us save many lives. This robot is named Autonomous Aquatic Inspection and Intervention (A2I2).

The A212 aims to clean underwater nuclear waste. This machine will eradicate the necessity to send people to hazardous environments. Recently the A212 revealed its capabilities. The demonstration took place in unsafe environments in a 1.2-million-liter tank facility of Forth in Maryport.

Gary Cross, a senior robotics engineer, said, “The whole challenge of this particular project was removing people from hazardous and dangerous environments,” 

“One of the key things is increasing the distance between the operators and the environment they’re working in. And the easiest way to do that is to make the vehicle remote, remotely controlled, and remotely operated.”

For live-streaming 3D images of matter, A212 utilizes a system known as SubSlam

The robot was able to move autonomously through the deep-water pond. It successfully avoids collisions, locates items on the pond floor. It effectively relays images in real-time back to screens.

Cross added, “So, technology such as the advanced perception system and mapping capabilities enables us to use the autonomy to provide the appropriate systems to the pilots who can still be in control in a safe and meaningful way within the pond,” 

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi is a gold medalist Post Graduate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

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