Makoto Senoo

Development of an Automated Remote Inspection System for the Interior of the Primary Containment Vessel of a Nuclear Power Plant.

An automated remote inspection system has been developed for the interior of the primary containment vessel of a nuclear power plant. This system consists of an inspection robot and an operators console. The inspection robot travels along a monorail provided in the interior of the primary containment vessel. The operators console is located in the central control room of the power plant. We have made efforts to downsize the robot and automate the inspection and monitoring machinery. As for downsizing the robot, a 152mm wide, 290mm high cross-sectional area and 15kg weight can be realized usingcommercially available small sensors and rearranging the parts in those sensors. As for automating the inspection and monitoring, several monitoring functions are developed using image processing, frequency analysis and other techniques applied to signals from sensors such as an ITV camera, an infrared camera and a microphone, which are mounted on the robot. Endurance tests show resistance of the robot to radiational and thermal conditions is adequate for actual use in actual power plants.