The nuclear decommissioning team at Sellafield continues to find new ways of using Spot the robot dog: the quadruped robot has now successfully carried out swabbing, a vital task in monitoring radioactivity.
Swabbing is a common task at Sellafield. The health physics team carries out hundreds of swabs each day in contaminated areas. Using circular paper filters, these swabs monitor radiation levels across a range of surfaces, providing vital data that informs decommissioning strategies and ensures compliance with safety regulations.
To carry out the task, Spot was fitted with a specially designed, patent-pending contamination swabbing tool. Key to the tool’s design is its ability to replicate the complex and dextrous non-linear swabbing motion normally carried out by humans. This is possible due to the unique shape of the attachment, alongside an off-the-shelf haptic controller from Haply Robotics, and custom software, which captures an operator’s real-time hand movements and translates them into commands for Spot’s manipulator.
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