Radiation-Safe Robot Takes Odetics Into the Nuclear Age

Odetics Inc. has sent data recorders into space to store images of distant planets, provided strong robotic arms for military vehicles and installed automated equipment for videotaped broadcasts from television newsrooms.

And now Odetics is about to enter the nuclear age. The company has sold to the French government its latest invention: A six-legged automaton that can perform tasks in nuclear power plants--in rooms in which radiation makes it too dangerous for humans to work.

The robot, known as Odex III, will be shipped to France this Friday to handle high-radiation tasks for the Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique, the French agency that operates that country’s nuclear power plants.

The squat robot, referred to as a walking platform, is the result of eight years of research at Odetics, an Anaheim-based company that specializes in space technology and robotics. The machine, the third generation of robots created by Odetics Advanced Intelligent Machines unit, will cost more than $1.6 million.

The price tag does not include the equipment to integrate it into a particular nuclear plant, which CEA intends to do itself. A fully equipped machine, designed to match a customer’s specific needs, would cost at least $2.5 million.

“Our goal is to be able to intervene in an incidental situation,” said Jean Gonnord, CEA deputy director of research.

In other words, in case of an accident. Gonnord said the robot could gather information during the initial stages of an accident without any concern about exposure to nuclear radiation. About 80% of France’s energy is produced by 56 nuclear reactors.

The Odetics robot is tethered to a control panel by an umbilical cord. Gonnord said this restricts the machine’s movement somewhat and presents some other potential problems. “If you lose the umbilical cord, the robot is lost,” he said, adding that CEA hopes to develop a system to eliminate the cord by using radio signals.

Due to radiation absorption levels in the human body, teams of people must be rotated in and out of hazardous areas where tasks in a nuclear reactor must be performed, Odetics general manager Bill Baker said.

“A robot can walk into these radioactive areas and be able to take data and pan a video camera around,” Baker said.

In cases where sites are extremely contaminated and unsafe for people for any amount of time, robots could spare nuclear power plants the cost of shutting down. “A cost of about $500,000 per day per reactor,” Baker said.

The robot always keeps at least three of its legs on the ground to maintain stability while using the other three to walk. An operator manipulates the computerized machine using a joy stick. Odex III can lift 5,000 pounds and exert 5,500 pounds of vertical force.

Alan Rohrabacher, electronics engineering manager for Odetics, estimated the robot’s useful life could exceed 10 years. He said the machine can be “completely decontaminated” of all radiation.

The robot is the brainchild of Odetics mechanical engineer Stephen Bartholet. Pursuing a hobby and with some financial help from the company, he developed a prototype of a robotic mill and lathe in the late 1970s.

In 1982, the company decided to move into robotics as a new line of business. Within two years, the company produced its first generation of robots, Odex I. It is now on permanent display in the Smithsonian Institution.

The purpose of Odex I was to demonstrate the robot’s strength and its ability to move and climb stairs, according to Odetics spokeswoman Holly Barnett. The next generation, Odex II, added a turret arm and gripper.

Odex III has been specially designed to withstand the contamination it will be exposed to in a nuclear facility. The project is “a systems engineering dream,” Baker said, with its different emphases on the academic, implementation and production aspects of engineering.

“We spent a lot of time and effort resolving problems which were not obvious in the beginning,” said Kevin Daily, Odetics chief technical officer. “Now we’ve moved to the stage where we’re starting to get a lot of satisfaction out of (this project).”