Development of a K3A robot for deployment in radioactive environments
Radioactive materials make up a significant part of the hazardous-material inventory of the United States Department of Energy. Much of the radioactive material will be inspected or handled by robotic systems that contain electronic circuits that may be damaged by gamma radiation and other particles emitted from radioactive material. To use a mobile robot in the vicinity of high-level gamma radiation requires a special design. Since materials and electronic circuits can withstand some radiation without failure, the simplest approach would be simply to use an unmodified commercial mobile robot in the radioactive environment but remove it before failure occurs. Unpowered backup is another method of extending system lifetime in an ionizing radiation environment. When the primary system fails or degrades sufficiently, the backup system can be switched in to maintain system operation. By careful design and production-lot testing, systems can be designed to meet moderate doses of radiation; however, randomly-selected off- the-shelf commercial parts cannot be guaranteed to meet a specified total-dose tolerance. We can define the Basic Radiation-Hardened System to be a teleoperated K3A transport capable of deploying a radiation-hardened video camera for initial entry and inspection applications. The electronics in the K3A mobile base has three essential modules: MA-2 Motor Amplifier Circuit, DC-I Drive Control Computer, and DC/DC Converter for powering the electronics. Design of the system will be discussed.
- Research Organization:
- South Carolina Universities Research and Education Foundation, Clemson, SC (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC21-92MC29115
- OSTI ID:
- 369682
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/MC/29115--96/C0686; CONF-9605145--6; ON: DE96010025
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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