TechnoFusión remote handling laboratory: Contributions to nuclear fusion facilities maintenance tasks

Abstract

This paper shows that remote handling procedures are a key task on future fusion power plants. In Madrid, Spain, it is planned to build a singular scientific technical facility for the development of the technologies required for future commercial fusion reactors. One of the areas will be fully dedicated to remote handling for developing and testing tasks where human presence is not allowed. This paper presents a master - slave robotic system for bilateral tele-operation. A virtual environment has been created in order to validate tasks with this platform. This paper also explains the problematic of handling heavy loads which is the main problem in fusion environments. When manipulating heavy objects, the force reflection cannot be directly applied to the user. Our purposed solution is based on applying adaptive control methods which provide enough information to the operator to fulfill the task and stabilizes the system when sudden changes in the load occur.