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by DRONELIFE Staff Author Ian M. Crosby
Drone pilots at UK nuclear site Sellafield Ltd have successfully accomplished two flight firsts resulting in increased worker safety during decommissioning. Flyability’s Elios 3 drone was successfully deployed with a LiDAR sensor, marking a serious milestone for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) team and achieving peerless efficiency in mapping and 3D modeling. Soon after, the team successfully flew the Elios 3 with a RAD (Radiation Activity Detection) dosimeter, intended to map radiation hotspots in areas prior to entry of unused areas of the location.
“We’re thrilled that this primary flight of Elios 3 with the LiDAR payload was successful and the information collected is now being processed in a Computer Aided Design system which is able to produce a 3D model of the realm in query, helping to tell engineering decisions going forwards. Sending a drone into this tight and unused space moderately than an worker in the primary instance reduces risk, and in addition saves money and time,” said Amanda Smith, UAV Equipment Programme Lead, based at Sellafield Ltd’s Engineering Centre of Excellence in Cleator Moor. “The team put lots of work into ensuring they were fully prepared for this flight. There are constructing plans they’ll study and check out to work out one of the best route for the drone to take. Nevertheless, these plans are a long time old and, as on this case, the pilot encountered obstacles we weren’t expecting. The access into the realm was also tighter than expected.
“He needed to adapt to the changing circumstances incredibly quickly as he only had eight minutes of battery power to get into the realm, map it with the equipment, and get out again,” Smith continued. “We all the time have two pilots on every flight as although it’s a brief flight the degrees of concentration required by the pilot are extremely high and at Sellafield we wish to make sure the security of our pilots and the equipment.”
“The flights may be very intense and on this case there was pipework in all places. The drones fly in a cage with sensors so in the event that they do occur to the touch anything they won’t be damaged. The toughest part is remembering your way out again. In such a brief space of time it is advisable to get out and in quickly,” said UAV equipment engineer and chief pilot Sam Jay. “There may be lots of pressure as not getting the drone out and having to send someone in after it could defeat the purpose of the flight. Now that we have now scanned the realm the engineers can design scaffolding before they go to unblock a pipe which has been causing a problem on this particular area. By deploying the drone, and speeding up the method we have now potentially saved the corporate, and the taxpayer, tons of of 1000’s of kilos.”
This month, Sellafield yet again made history as the primary UK nuclear site to utilize a drone equipped with a radiation monitor to find out radiation levels and locate hot spots in areas with unknown radiation exposure levels. This operation highlights Sellafield’s commitment to exploring recent radiation assessment solutions and improving the security of personnel.
“By flying with a radiation monitor we hope to have the option to supply a map of radiation hotspots inside areas to evaluate where it could or will not be protected for colleagues to enter,” added Smith.
“The primary flight was a terrific success but there are lots of safety checks to undergo before we will depend on the information we obtain. We must be sure that the readings are accurate and once we have now confidence within the numbers from the dose readings it may well help with planning jobs and other radiation monitoring applications,” said Tom Calverley, a radiometric physicist seconded to the UAV team. “We take exposure to radiation extremely seriously on the location and we rigorously plan and minimise any exposure that colleagues may face as a part of their job. Our acceptable levels of exposure are well below what the regulators say is protected. What we hope the drones will do is pinpoint any changes in dose readings inside an area. If there are significant changes we will then explore why that may be.”
“There is critical testing to do before we will believe within the readings,” Calverley continued. “We’re going to be testing the drone in a controlled environment by exposing it to various dose profiles. This testing will give us confidence in our understanding of the radiometric performance of the combined system. We must validate what manufacturers tell us as worker safety is our primary priority. But that is undoubtedly an enormous step forward and will make an enormous difference to how we operate and keep our staff protected on site.”
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