Application of the selective equipment removal system to D&D tasks

Abstract

The Selective Equipment Removal System has been designed as a generic and reconfigurable remote manipulation platform to demonstrate and evaluate mobile telerobotic concepts suitable for performing selective decontamination and dismantlement functions. Both radioactive and hazardous chemical environments dictate that human presence should be minimized in many of these activities. In addition, robotic deployment of large and heavy tools should improve safety of operation by limiting human proximity to tooling. Monotonous, repetitive, and high precision activities should also benefit by robotic completion. This paper discusses the development of the Selective Equipment Retrieval System and its remote manipulation platform, the Dual Arm Work Module, applicable tooling, and application to various decontamination and dismantlement tasks.