Nuclear snake-arm robots

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of snake‐arm robots to conduct inspection and repair operations within nuclear power plants. The systems that have been developed and deployed are described. Operational experience and results are provided. Inspection and repair of aging plant is increasingly important to continue to generate electricity safely from high value assets.Design/methodology/approach – Snake‐arm robots are hyper‐redundant, multi‐jointed, wire rope drive manipulators that are able to snake between obstructions and gain access to areas that are inaccessible to people.Findings – The benefits to nuclear operators arising from the deployment of snake arm robots include significant dose saving, increased quality and quantity of acquired data and the ability to enable repairs in highly confined spaces.Originality/value – The two case studies are first‐of‐kind applications and indicate a direction of travel for the coming decades, both in the nuclear sector and far beyond.