• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2013.05a
• /
• pp.63-64
• /
• 2013

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2004.08a
• /
• pp.1116-1120
• /
• 2004

In the nuclear power plant, there are several cylindrical vessels such as reactor vessel, pressuriser and so on. The vessels are usually constructed by welding large rolled plates, forged sections or nozzle pipes together. In order to assure the integrity of the vessel, these welds should be periodically inspected using sensors such as ultrasonic transducer or visual cameras. This inspection is usually conducted under water to minimize exposure to the radioactively contaminated vessel walls. The inspections have been performed by using a conventional inspection machine with a big structural sturdy column, however, it is so huge and heavy that maintenance and handling of the machine are extremely difficult. It requires much effort to transport the system to the site and also requires continuous use of the utility's polar crane to move the manipulator into the building and then onto the vessel. Setup beside the vessel requires a large volume of work preparation area and several shifts to complete. In order to resolve these problems, we have developed an underwater mobile robot guided by the laser pointer, and performed a series of experiments both in the mockup and in the real reactor vessel. This paper introduces our robotic inspection system and the laser guidance of the mobile robot as well as the results of the functional test.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2005.06a
• /
• pp.346-351
• /
• 2005

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends closed to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper develops a mobile feeder pipe inspection robot that can minimize the irradiation dose of human workers by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix the robot body on the pipe, one extendable and contractable actuator, and a rotation actuator connected the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward, and to rotate in the circumferential direction

• International Journal of Control, Automation, and Systems
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.87-95
• /
• 2006

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by a high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called a FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends close to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper describes a mobile feeder pipe inspection robot that can minimize the irradiation dose to human workers by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix the robot body on to the pipe, one extendable and contractible actuator, and a rotation actuator connected to the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward, and to rotate in a circumferential direction.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
• /
• 2002.06e
• /
• pp.193-196
• /
• 2002

In this paper, we presents the remote inspection activity with a mobile robot at the calandria face areas of the PHWR (pressurized heavy water reactor) nuclear power plants during full power plant operation.. The tele-operated mobile robot has been developed for this task. A 4 wheeled mechanism with the dual reconfigurable crawler arm has been adopted for the ease access to the high radiation area of calandria face. A specially designed extendable long reach mast attached on the mobile platform and the thermal image monitoring system enable human eyes to look into the calandria face. Application of robot will keep human workers from high radiation exposure and enhance the reliability of nuclear power plants.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2004.04a
• /
• pp.816-821
• /
• 2004

The outlet feeder pipe thinning in a PHWR (Pressured Heavy Water Reactor) is caused by high pressure steam flow inside the pipe, which is a well known degradation mechanism called FAC (Flow Assisted Corrosion). In order to monitor the degradation, the thickness of the outlet bends closed to the exit of the pressure tube should be measured and analyzed at every official overhaul. This paper develops an automatic feeder pipe inspection system that can minimize the irradiation dose by automating the measurement process. The robot can move by itself on the feeder pipe by using an inch worm mechanism, which is constructed by two gripper bodies that can fix their body on the pipe and one extendable and retractable body connected the two gripper bodies to move forward and backward.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
• /
• 2002.07a
• /
• pp.711-714
• /
• 2002

Thermal infrared camera have poor image qualities compared to commercial CCD cameras, as in contrast, brightness, and. resolution. To compensate the poor Image quality problems associated with the thermal infrared camera, the technique of superimposing thermal infrared image into real ccd image is proposed. The mobile robot KAEROT/m2, loaded with sensor head system at the mast, is entered to monitor leakage of heavy water and thermal abnormality of the calandria reactor area in overhaul period. The sensor head system is composed of thermal infrared camera and cod camera In parallel. When thermal abnormality on observation points and areas of calandria reactor area is occurred, unusual hot image taken from thermal infrared camera is superimposed on real CCD image. In this inspection experiment, more accurate positions of thermal abnormalities on calandria reactor area can be estimated by using technique of mapping thermal infrared image into CCD image, which include characters arranged in MPOQ order.