Radiochemistry Sensors for use on Robotic Inspection Vehicles

机器人系统正越来越广泛地用于放射性设施的检查和表征，如灾难现场（福岛）和核储存设施（塞拉菲尔德）。虽然在机电一体化和自主性方面，核环境远程检查车辆领域正在进行重要的研究，但很少有传感器可以部署在其上，以提供几何布局（视觉和激光雷达）或一般辐射水平（伽马和中子探测器）之外的详细信息。该项目将调查一系列放射化学传感技术的使用情况，这些技术可部署在化学纸传感器等远程视察车辆上。主要的挑战将是分析车辆本身的结果，这样就不需要在实验室中检索和分析样本，基本上是建立一个移动的实验室。这是因为大多数视察车辆一旦部署就无法收回，研究领域将包括开发可安装在机器人上的新型小规模放射化学探测方法和移动的实验室取样方法。

Robotic systems are becoming more widely used in the inspection and characterisation of radioactive facilities such as disaster sites (Fukushima) and nuclear storage facilities (Sellafield). Whilst there is significant ongoing research in the field of remote inspection vehicles for nuclear environments in terms of the mechatronics and autonomy, there are very few sensors which can be deployed on them to provide detailed information beyond the geometric layout (vision andLIDAR) or general radiation levels (gamma and neutron detectors). This project will investigate the use of a range of radiochemical sensing technologies which could be deployed onto remote inspection vehicles such as chemo-paper-sensors. The primary challenge will be to analyse the results on the vehicles themselves so that samples do not need to be retrieved and analysed in a lab, essentially creating a mobile lab. This is due to the fact that most inspection vehicles cannot be retrieved once they have been deployed.Research areas will include the development of novel small-scale radiochemical detection methods which can be mounted on a robot and sampling methodologies for the mobile lab.