Use of drones inside NPPs? (to get radiation maps)

[Marlin]

This isn't inside a NPP but it is IAEA

Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Environmental Monitoring


Development as Part of IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety

By Rodolfo Quevenco, IAEA Division of Public Information

It's a sight you don't often see at the headquarters of the IAEA in Vienna.

With a whirr of its 6 rotors and a puff of dust, a remote-controlled vehicle takes off and hovers above the heads of Agency officials and staff, and then flies along a pre-determined path.

The cylindrical, clover-shaped aerial vehicle with a mounted camera on board is one of the latest breed of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) – commonly known as "drones" – available today. The demonstration was held as part of a consultancy meeting on the parameters for using UAVs for rapid environmental monitoring held at IAEA headquarters from 14 to 17 May 2013.

The consultancy meeting was organized by the IAEA's Physics Section within the framework of the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety. One of the aims of the Action Plan is to ensure the ongoing protection of people and the environment from ionizing radiation by facilitating the use of available expertise and techniques for environmental monitoring. The meeting was attended by environmental mapping and UAV experts from Germany, Japan, Switzerland and the USA to review and evaluate the current state of detector technology and methods, particularly in relation to aerial surveys and existing UAV technology.

"This consultancy meeting is the first step in a IAEA Nuclear Safety Action Plan project to prepare the ground for the development of a UAV-based system for rapid environmental monitoring," Ralf Bernd Kaiser, Section Head of the IAEA Physics Section, explains.

Sessions during the four-day meeting featured specialist reports on the experience with aerial mapping including the use of UAVs, as well as reviews of detector technology, in particular mobile gamma spectrometry. These sessions provided the needed backdrop for evaluating project needs with present-day capabilities of commercial UAV technologies and radiation detector technologies.

Lighter and equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) and battery technology developed for smart phones, today's UAV systems can fill an important gap between walking surveys and manned aerial inspections. They are already widely used for other kinds of environmental monitoring, including air pollution and video surveillance.

"For environmental mapping, unmanned UAVs can be deployed to monitor hard to reach areas where the level of contamination is unknown, and establish whether you can actually send in people," Mr. Kaiser said.

The final sessions of the consultancy meeting will focus on drafting the technical specification parameters for using an unmanned aerial vehicle for environmental mapping surveys of dose rate and radionuclide identification. In addition, experts will also draw up technical specifications for using these UAVs in combination with detector systems for low-level airborne gamma spectrometry.

The options and recommendations of the consultancy meeting will be presented during a stakeholder meeting scheduled to be held in Japan. After the meeting in Japan, the UAV (or UAVs) best suited for the application will be procured and the detector system(s) will be developed. "Our goal is to have a system for testing by the coming year," Mr. Kaiser said.

http://ndreport.com/using-unmanned/

[Old HP]

There are a number of interesting proposals here ( especially Roger's with the stun capability, I had suggested that years ago with the advent of electronic dosimetry). However the reality is controlling a vehicle in a confined space with many obstacles, ventilation currents,darkness etc. then add transmitting dosimetry and hoping all systems work.Then lets imagine what it would take to accurately determine the drones position for interpreting the survey data. The concept is great but we have not progressed that far yet. I remember the robotic equipment brought into TMI shortly after the accident and it did not work so a bunch of us dumb HPs had to venture into all kinds of areas where no one had a clue as to what kind of exposure levels we would  find.
So now after 34 years I have had the good fortune to work with some new generation robotic equipment and it has gotten better but with many limiting factors. The best advances I have seen are SG- ECT equipment and use of submarines for RX vessel and H/L, C/L or MSL inspections.
As mentioned in earlier posts, by others, the cost and actual application values make it a simple choice for management to just send an HP in to get the information.

[RDTroja]

There are a number of interesting proposals here ( especially Roger's with the stun capability, I had suggested that years ago with the advent of electronic dosimetry). However the reality is controlling a vehicle in a confined space with many obstacles, ventilation currents,darkness etc. then add transmitting dosimetry and hoping all systems work.Then lets imagine what it would take to accurately determine the drones position for interpreting the survey data. The concept is great but we have not progressed that far yet. I remember the robotic equipment brought into TMI shortly after the accident and it did not work so a bunch of us dumb HPs had to venture into all kinds of areas where no one had a clue as to what kind of exposure levels we would  find.
So now after 34 years I have had the good fortune to work with some new generation robotic equipment and it has gotten better but with many limiting factors. The best advances I have seen are SG- ECT equipment and use of submarines for RX vessel and H/L, C/L or MSL inspections.
As mentioned in earlier posts, by others, the cost and actual application values make it a simple choice for management to just send an HP in to get the information.

The plant at which I am currently employed purchased a robot (ground variety) to go behind the bioshield at power to do an inspection. They had a 'Name the Robot' competition and I wanted to suggest (but did not spend the time) naming it 'Junior' as in 'Send the Junior in to see what it looks like in there.'

I didn't think the higher-ups would see the humor.

[GLW]

The plant at which I am currently employed purchased a robot (ground variety) to go behind the bioshield at power to do an inspection. They had a 'Name the Robot' competition and I wanted to suggest (but did not spend the time) naming it 'Junior' as in 'Send the Junior in to see what it looks like in there.'

I didn't think the higher-ups would see the humor.

back in the day, the Catholic school's Weekly Reader had Roinuj, a little egg shaped guy reminiscent of the human characters on the Pink Panther cartoons,...

Roinuj was junioR, backwards,...

some higher ups might go with that, it's funny but sophisticated, like a SONGS Trek dontcha know?!?!?!?