Cognitive Systems & Robotics Laboratory

Radioactive robotic sorter (ECHORD++ experiment) ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

Radioactive robotic sorter (ECHORD++ experiment)

The robotics research project ECHORD++ (The European Coordination Hub for Open Robotics Development) will promote the interaction between robot manufacturers, researchers and users. ECHORD++ will achieve its goal by implementing three different instruments: the Experiments, Public end-user Driven Technological Innovation (PDTI), and the Robotics Innovation Facilities (RIFs). With the Experiments ECHORD++ offers research consortia funding to develop robotics technology for real use-cases.

RadioRoSo is one of ECHORD++ experiments. The key objective of the RadioRoSo experiment is: to demonstrate advanced perception/manipulation skills of a bi-manual and semi-autonomous robot in the application of sorting mixed compressible radioactive waste material, for decommissioning or decontamination operations. The experiment will be guided by a pragmatic application scenario and end-user feedback. Upon successful completion of the experiment the results will be directly exploitable on an existing large decommissioning project by industrial user NES.

The sorting/dismantling job in the radioactive environment has been performed either manually or by master-slave manipulators/robots remotely operated by humans since 1950s. RadioRoSo will innovate the process by making it autonomous and faster. The cognitive burden of the human operator and thus the overall cost of the procedure will be reduced significantly.