Design rationale for a remote work vehicle

Abstract

The remote work vehicle (RWV) is a mobile, teleoperated, electrohydraulic robot designed for aggressive, radiological decontamination work. The RWV performs tasks such as washdown, sampling, material packaging and transport, surfacing, and demolition. This paper discusses the design rationale that shaped the development of the RWV with respect to capability, reliability, operability, decontaminability, extensibility, and maintainability. To meet an important subset of nuclear damage recovery tasks, the design embraced these often competing ideals.