A Teleoperated Cleaning Robot for a High Radioactive Environment

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has developed a teleoperated cleaning robot for use in the radioactive zone of the isolation room of the Irradiated Material Examination Facility where direct human access to the interior is strictly limited. The teleoperated cleaning robot that was designed to completely eliminate human interaction with the hazardous radioactive contaminants has five remotely replaceable submodules - a mobile module for navigation, a cleaning module for dislodging and sucking contaminated waste, a sensing module for obstacle avoidance, a collection module for storing the acquired waste, and a cover module for protecting the collection module. This cleaning robot is capable of cleaning the contaminated floor surface of the isolation room and collecting loose dry spent nuclear fuel debris and other radioactive waste fixed or scattered on the floor surface. The developed cleaning robot is operated either by a manual control or by autonomous control in conjunction with a graphical simulator, by which the human operator can monitor and intervene the robot performing cleanup tasks in the isolation room. In this paper, we present the mechanical and environmental design considerations and development of the teleoperated cleaning robot for radioactive isolation room use. We also demonstrate its mock-up performance test results from the viewpoint of a remote cleanup operation and remote maintenance.