TORONE - TOtal characterisation for Remote Observation in Nuclear Environments

未来核能在英国和国际上的使用在很大程度上依赖于描述核工业中出现的各种高放射性环境的能力，这些环境既能有效地去污，也能退役，还能设计新的核裂变反应堆和聚变反应堆。目前，场地和材料表征既昂贵又耗时，因为专门为核领域设计的人造和天然材料的环境、化学和地球科学表征的远程方法有限。这些通常是高放射性环境的难以接近、复杂和受限的性质，使传统的基于现场的数据收集技术无法进行，这些技术通常侧重于样品收集和非现场分析。在一个特定的工厂里，样品分析的成本高达数万甚至数十万英镑，而且获取样品的可能性非常有限，实际上是不可能的，在分离之前进行远程原位分析可能会提供一种更便宜、更安全、更快速、更有吸引力的解决方案。目前的原位技术（例如伽马光谱、3D激光扫描、通过激光诱导击穿光谱的元素组成），每一种技术都能回答一个特定的表征问题，但它们本身只能提供完整表征图像的一个组成部分，例如废物分离。该项目旨在将这些技术结合到一个集成系统中，每一种技术都实时地形成一个无缝的拼图——一个“整体特征”图片——将特征材料设置到它们所处的环境的空间背景中。先进的机器人和控制技术将以类似于美国宇航局好奇号火星车的方式使用，以形成在从英国塞拉菲尔德到日本福岛的一系列核环境中进行试验所需的灵活平台。

The future use of nuclear energy in the UK and internationally is very much dependent on the ability to characterise the various highly radioactive environments that occur in the nuclear industry for both efficient decontamination and decommissioning as well as in the design of new nuclear fission reactors as well as fusion reactors. Currently, site and material characterisation is costly and time consuming because remote methods for the environmental, chemical and geoscientific characterisation of man-made and natural materials, specifically designed for the nuclear arena, are limited. The inaccessible, complex and confined nature of these often high-radioactivity environments can preclude traditional field-based data collection techniques, which are often focused on sample collection and off-site analysis. With costs entering the tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds for sample analysis in a particular plant, and the possibility that access is so restricted that obtaining samples may actually be impossible, remote in-situ analysis prior to segregation may offer a cheaper, safer, quicker and thus far more attractive solution. On their own, current in-situ techniques (e.g. gamma spectroscopy, 3D laser scanning, elemental composition through laser induced breakdown spectroscopy), each answer a particular characterisation question, but on their own only provide a component of the full characterisation picture that is required for instance for waste segregation. This project aims to combine such technologies into an integrated system, with each technology contributing in real-time to form a seamless jigsaw - a 'total characterisation' picture - setting characterised materials into the spatial context of the environment they are located in. Advanced robotics and control technologies will be used in a similar way to NASA's Curiosity Rover to form the flexible platform necessary for the trials in a range of nuclear environments from Sellafield in the UK to Fukushima in Japan.