UK atomic authorities award $4.2mln in contracts for robots used in nuclear activities

Washington, Apr 20 (FN Bureau) The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) awarded 3 million pounds ($4.2 million) in contracts to two companies on Tuesday to support the development of robots designed to help with nuclear decommissioning and fusion programs.

“The UK Atomic Energy Authority (‘UKAEA’) has awarded Veolia Nuclear Solutions (UK) and Wälischmiller Engineering GmbH separate contracts totalling £3 million to supply robotic manipulator arms to its RACE research facility,” reads UKAEA’s announcement. The companies will each provide twin-arm haptic manipulators – robotic arms designed to grab and handle nuclear materials – to the sites. They will be used both for active work at two decommissioned facilities and for training new nuclear operators as well. The contracts stem from the UK-Japanese robotics deal for fusion energy and nuclear decommissioning research, called LongOps, announced in January this year.

The program will support research and development of faster and safer decommissioning at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi site in Japan and at Sellafield in the UK. The project is a four-year collaboration led jointly by the UK Research and Innovation, the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company. Sellafield is a former nuclear power plant in the north of England that now engages in activities such as nuclear fuel reprocessing, nuclear waste storage, and nuclear decommissioning.