Design and development of multirobot system for remote repair of nuclear pipe equipment

Abstract

The extreme radiation environment in nuclear power plant leads to leakage of nuclear pipe equipment. It is important to repair the pipe equipment timely for nuclear safety. Manual repair on field incurs a health risk to worker. The use of robot for remote repair shows an excellent prospect. Therefore, the multirobot system (MRS) was developed and designed for field remote repair of nuclear reprocessing pipe equipment. The sensor modules and composite control strategy were developed for remote repair in the radiation environment. The remote repair of nuclear pipe equipment including both overall and partial repair has been achieved. The remote repair of the MRS is successfully performed on a full‐size stainless steel pipe model. The experimental results show that the MRS performed 63 processes with an overall time of 12,798 s, while the manual repair requires multiple people to spend many days to complete the repair. Moreover, the MRS achieves great repair quality and appearance. The MRS achieves excellent performance in remote repair of nuclear pipe equipment under extreme radiation conditions, demonstrating its capability for effective and safe operation.