Robotic arm cleans nuclear waste

Citation

(1998), "Robotic arm cleans nuclear waste", Industrial Robot, Vol. 25 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.1998.04925aaf.009

Robotic arm cleans nuclear waste

Robotic arm cleans nuclear waste

Cleaning out nuclear-waste storage tanks is a risky and complex task that could expose workers to radioactive materials. To make these clean-ups safer, engineers at GreyPhilgrim LLC, a robotic company in Menlo Park, California, teamed up with their counterparts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to develop the Easily Manipulated Mechanical Armature (EMMA). EMMA is a remotely operated robotic arm that looks and moves like an elephant's trunk. It is equipped with a set of steel cables that activate individual stages of the arm to provide sinuous movements. A waste-removal hose enables EMMA to remove liquid wastes, and an ultrahigh-pressure water jet attached to the end of the arm can dislodge items stuck in place. A prototype version of EMMA is being built for testing at NIST. When completed, the arm will measure up to 40ft long and 2ft in diameter, and will be able to lift a 100-pound payload at full reach. An earlier version of EMMA, 18ft long and 14ft in diameter, was integrated with NIST's own RoboCrane ­ a 20ft tall, mobile, spiderlike crane designed so that its work platform is held rigidly in place even at an angle. This characteristic provides a stable base for EMMA to simultaneously move round inside a tank and clean it. To clean out congested underground waste-storage tanks, EMMA would be mounted to a larger version of the RoboCrane that could straddle the tank. This would avoid exerting forces on tanks of unknown structured integrity and provide remote-controlled, multipurpose crane-type capabilities. Conceptual designs have been completed for a full-size RoboCrane than can deploy an EMMA measuring 40ft or longer.