Going underground at Dounreay

A robot named Lyra has successfully surveyed an underground radioactive ventilation duct in Dounreay’s redundant laboratories in Scotland.

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL) and the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence in Nuclear (RAIN) Hub are working together to develop a robot capable of accessing areas that are inaccessible or unsafe for humans to work in. The RAIN Hub is a consortium of universities led by the University of Manchester, UK.

This year, a robot named Lyram which has a package of surveying measures including LIDAR, multiple angle cameras, radiation probes and the ability to take swabs using the manipulator arm, carried out a survey of the 140m long underfloor duct which runs under the central corridor between the laboratories, providing useful information that will help to solve the challenge of decommissioning.

Lyra is based on work from 2020 when a group of engineers from RAIN brought a small surveying remotely operated vehicle equipped with sensors, cameras and a manipulator arm to Dounreay. Initial trials in an inactive building provided useful information, and a limited survey in the laboratories took place in 2021.

RAIN Hub Director Barry Lennox comments, ‘We wanted to demonstrate that the robot could be used successfully in active areas. We added fail safe devices, including a remote reboot switch, and a winch to enable us to physically retrieve the robot if it got stuck on the debris in the duct. The survey has demonstrated Lyra’s reliability in active areas.’