Blended Intelligence for Safe and Efficient Nuclear Sort & Segmentation

威立雅核能解决方案公司的联合体汇集了来自领先的核能、农业技术、太空和人工智能从业者的成熟技术和深厚的领域专业知识，以应对核废料分类和分割的挑战。我们的愿景是一个使用一系列遥控机械手的系统，类似于人类的手臂，与先进的特征和跟踪技术一起工作，以识别、分类、拾取、转移、跟踪和包装核废料。机械手手臂的操作可以在计算机智能的控制下自主操作，或者对于更复杂的抓取和纠结的废物，需要熟练操作员的专业知识来接管任务。通过在人类和计算机智能之间分担高度异质废物的分类和分割任务，我们的目标是在当前流程的安全性和效率方面进行阶段性改变；对于复杂的任务，只需要熟练操作员的有限干预。我们的模块化方法专注于构建正确的智能和决策框架，以决定如何管理和分类废物，以及正确的废物处理能力，以将废物分类并将其送往需要的地方。用于表征的输入传感器和机械手平台的配置将被设计为易于改变，以适应正在分类的废物，使方法可以在废物流和分类地点之间转移。该技术旨在通过自主操作增强操作员的能力，同时将它们从危险环境中移走。效率随着每个操作员部署的机械手单元的数量而变化。重要的是，这为废物从业者提供了灵活性，使他们能够通过流确定人类/自主能力的正确组合，并随着系统和操作员的学习而随时间改进。领导该项目的是核机器人专家、Dexter TM开发商威立雅核解决方案英国公司(Veolia Nuclear Solutions UK，简称VNS)。VNS将得到林肯大学提供自动化和力引导技术的支持，提供废物跟踪、包装和物理化学表征的人工智能的学院，以及辐射检测设备和表征方面的专家Createc。

Veolia Nuclear Solutions' consortium brings together proven technologies and deep domain expertise from leading nuclear, agritech., space and artificial intelligence practitioners to meet the challenge of nuclear waste sort and segmentation. Our vision is a system that uses a series of tele-manipulators, analogous to a human's arms, that work together with advanced characterisation and tracking technologies to identify, classify, pick up, transfer, trace and package nuclear waste.Operation of the manipulator arms can be under the control of computer intelligence and operate autonomously, or for more complex grabs and tangled wastes, call on the expertise of a skilled operator to take over the task. By sharing the task of the sorting and segmentation of highly heterogeneous wastes between human and computer intelligence, we aim to offer a step change in the safety and efficiency of the current process; only limited intervention by skilled operators will be needed for complex tasks.Our modular approach is focused around building the right intelligence and decision making frameworks to decide how to manage and classify the waste, and the right waste manipulation capability to separate the waste and get it where it needs to go. Input sensors for characterisation, and configuration of the manipulator platform, will be designed to be easily changed to suit the waste being sorted making the approach transferable across waste streams and sorting locations.The technology looks to enhance operator capability with autonomous operation whilst removing them from the hazardous environment. Efficiency scales as the number of manipulator units deployed per operator. Importantly this builds in flexibility for waste practitioners to determine the right mix of human/autonomous capability by stream and improve with time as the system and operators learn.Leading the project is Veolia Nuclear Solutions UK (VNS), an expert in nuclear robotics and developer of DEXTER TM. VNS will be supported by the University of Lincoln providing automation and force guidance technology, Faculty providing the artificial intelligence for waste tracking, packing and physico-chemical characterisation, and Createc, a specialist in radiological detection equipment and characterisation.