Radiochemistry Sensors for use on Robotic Inspection Vehicles

机器人系统正越来越广泛地用于检查和确定放射性设施的特征，如灾难现场(福岛)和核储存设施(塞拉菲尔德)。虽然核环境远程检查车领域在机电一体化和自主性方面正在进行大量研究，但可以在其上部署的传感器很少，可以提供几何布局(视觉和激光雷达)或一般辐射水平(伽马和中子探测器)以外的详细信息。该项目将调查一系列放射化学传感技术的使用情况，这些技术可部署在远程检查车辆上，如化学纸传感器。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提取和分析样本，实质上是创建了一个移动实验室。这是因为大多数检查车辆一旦部署后就无法取回。研究领域将包括开发可安装在机器人上的新型小型放射化学检测方法，以及移动实验室的采样方法。

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.