• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.214-225
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• 2003

A teleoperated manipulator system has been developed for remote handling of the spent fuel bundles. A heavy-duty power manipulator with high reduction ratio joints is used for the slave manipulator in the developed system since the handling tasks of the spent fuel bundles need power. Also, the universal type master manipulator, which has force reflecting capability, is used for precise remote manipulation. The power manipulators so frequently occur the control input saturation that the precise control performances are not achieved due to the windup phenomenon. An advanced bilateral control scheme compensating for the saturation is applied to the teleoperated manipulator system. The validity of the developed system is verified by the grid cutting and fuel transportation tasks from the mockup spent fuel bundle.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.524-530
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• 2012

In this study, it is performed that the assessment of feasibility of developed material processing facilities using tele-operation manipulator system for the pyroprocessing. To evaluate the performance of developed facilities using tele-operation system, several performance indices are considered as remote visibility, remote reachability and remote manipulability. These are applied to RHEM (Remote Handling Evaluation Mock-up) and digital mock-up system respectively. Through this approaches, several requirements for the system improvement are deduced and preliminary inspection for real system application is fully performed. Additionally, assembly and disassembly tasks for the repair of remote handling system are also examined remotely in RHEM and evaluated those performances.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.840-845
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• 2004

The remote operation of the Advanced Spent Fuel Conditioning Process (ACP) is analyzed by using the 3D graphic simulation tools. Since the spent nuclear fuel, which is a high radioactive material, is processed in the ACP, the ACP equipment is operated in intense radiation fields as well as in a high temperature. Thus, the equipment is operated in a remote manner and should be designed with consideration for the remote handling and maintenance. Also suitable remote handling technology needs to be developed along with the design of the process concepts. For this we developed a graphic simulator, which provides the capability of verifying the remote operability of the ACP without the fabrication of the process equipment. In other words, by applying virtual reality to the remote maintenance operation, a remote operation task can be simulated in the graphic simulator, not in the real environment. The graphic simulator will substantially reduce the cost of the development of the remote handling and maintenance procedure as well as the process equipment, while at the same time developing a remote maintenance concept that is more reliable, easier to implement, and easier to understand.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1319-1322
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• 2003

KAERI is developing the Advanced Spent Fuel Conditioning Process (ACP) as a pre-disposal treatment process for spent fuel. Equipment used for such a spent fuel recycling and management process must operate in intense radiation fields as well as in a high temperature. Therefore, remote maintenance has a played a significant role in this process because of combined chemical and radiological contamination. Hence suitable remote handling and maintenance technology needs to be developed along with the design of the process concepts. To do this, we developed the graphic simulator for the ACP. The graphic simulator provides the capability of verifying the remote operability of the process without fabrication of the process equipment. In other words, by applying virtual reality to the remote maintenance operation, a remote operation task can be simulated in the graphic simulator, not in a real environment. The graphic simulator will substantially reduce the cost of the development of the remote handling and maintenance procedure as well as the process equipment, while at the same time producing a process and a remote maintenance concept that is more reliable, easier to implement, and easier to understand.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2012

To assess hydraulic connections between sub-components of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) diagnostic port plug, the laser welding and ablation cutting process were investigated in order to be applied the remote handling maintenance. In this study, laser ablation cutting, which vaporizes a small amount of solid material directly into gas by focusing a laser beam of high density energy, is adopted in order to overcome the limitation of the normal laser cutting technology that the head should be placed as close to the work piece as possible to blow out melt metal at a distance. Complete cutting of a work piece is obtained by repetitive multi-passes of the laser beam. The welding and cutting process were tested on the sample work pieces and finally on a prototype of a hydraulic connection module for remote handling. The results showed that this process can be a promising candidate for hydraulic connections by remote handling.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1378-1389
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• 2021

TRIUMF, Canada's particle accelerator centre, is constructing a new high-power ISOL (Isotope Separation On-Line) facility called ARIEL (Advanced Rare IsotopE Laboratory). Thick porous targets will be bombarded with up to 48 kW of 480 MeV protons from TRIUMF's cyclotron, or up to 100 kW of 30 MeV electrons from a new e-linac, to produce short-lived radioisotopes for a variety of applications, including nuclear astrophysics, fundamental nuclear structure and nuclear medicine. For efficient release of radioisotopes, the targets are heated to temperatures approaching 2000 ℃, and are exposed to GSv/h level radiation fields resulting from intended fissions and spallations. Due to these conditions, the operational life for each target is only about five weeks, calling for frequent remote target exchanges to limit downtime. A few days after irradiation, the targets have a residual radiation field producing a dose rate on the order of 10 Sv/h at 1 m, requiring several years of decay prior to shipment to a national disposal facility. TRIUMF is installing new remote handling infrastructure dedicated to ARIEL, including hot cells and a remote handling crane. The system design applies learnings from multiple existing facilities, including CERN-ISOLDE, GANIL-SPIRAL II as well as TRIUMF's ISAC (Isotope Separator and ACcelerator).

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1988.10b
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• pp.958-963
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• 1988

Teleoperator as a special robotic system for remote handling in hostile environment is reviewed in this article. Inherent features and prospective applications pertinent to teleoperator are indentified with particular concern for nuclear applications as major area of teleoperator technology exercise. Korean status as well as major world programs of teleoperator R&D are also reviewed with perspectives.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.437-438
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• 2011

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.378-390
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• 2023

The SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) facility, currently under development at Legnaro National Laboratories of INFN, aims at the production of intense RIB (Radioactive Ion Beams) employing the Isotope Separation On-Line (ISOL) technique for interdisciplinary research. The radioactive isotopes of interest are produced by the interaction of a multi-foil uranium carbide target with a 40 MeV 200 μA proton beam generated by a cyclotron proton driver. The Target Ion Source (TIS) is the core of the SPES project, here the radioactive nuclei, mainly neutron-rich isotopes, are stopped, extracted, ionized, separated, accelerated and delivered to specific experimental areas. Due to efficiency reasons, the TIS unit needs to be replaced periodically during operation. In this highly radioactive environment, the employment of autonomous systems allows the manipulation, transport, and storage of the TIS unit without the need for human intervention. A dedicated remote handling infrastructure is therefore under development to fulfill the functional and safety requirement of the project. This contribution describes the layout of the SPES target area, where all the remote handling systems operate to grant the smooth operation of the facility avoiding personnel exposure to a high dose rate or contamination issues.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1354-1358
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• 2003

The process equipment for handling high level radioactive materials like spent fuels is operated in a hot cell, due to high radioactivity. Thus, this equipment should be maintained and repaired optimally by a remotely operated manipulator. The master-slave manipulators(MSM) are widely used as a remote handling device in the hot cell. The equipment in the hot cell should be optimally placed within the workspace of the wall-mounted slave manipulator for the maintenance operation. But, because of the complexity in the hot cell, there would be some parts of the equipment that are not reached by the MSM. In this study, the maintenance process for these parts of the equipment is developed using virtual prototyping technology. To analyze the workspace of the maintenance device in the hot cell and to develop the maintenance processes for the process equipment, the virtual mock-up of the hot cell for the spent fuel handling process is implemented using IGRIP. For the implementation of the virtual mock-up, the parts of the equipment and maintenance devices such as the MSM and servo manipulator are modeled and assembled in 3-D graphics, and the appropriate kinematics are assigned. Also, the virtual workcell of the spent fuel management process is implemented in the graphical environment, which is the same as the real environment. Using this mock-up, the workspace of the manipulators in the hot cell and the operator's view through the wall-mounted lead glass are analyzed. Also, for the dedicated maintenance operation, the analyses for the detailed area of the end effectors in accordance with the slave manipulator's position and orientation are carried out. The parts of the equipment that are located outside of the MSM's workspace are specified and the maintenance process of the parts using the servo manipulator that is mounted in the hot cell is proposed. To monitor the process in the hot cell remotely, the virtual display system by a virtual camera in the virtual work cell is also proposed. And the graphic simulation using a virtual mock-up is performed to verify the proposed maintenance process. The maintenance process proposed in this study can be effectively used in the real hot cell operation and the implemented virtual mock-up can be used for analyzing the various hot cell operations and enhancing the reliability and safety of the spent fuel management.