Remotely Operated Mobile System Excavates Buried Nuclear Waste

This paper describes a 1,500 metric ton, mobile, remotely operated worksystem that has been designed to excavate and retrieve buried hazardous and low level nuclear waste. The mobile work system includes seven independent, multi-degree-of-freedom, telerobotic excavation tools and four remotely operated, double-lid transfer systems to move the waste through the system's negative pressure confinement barrier. Ten human operators in a separate building control the worksystem's functions from computer based control consoles communicating over a fiberoptic umbilical. A computer controlled anti-collision, radiation monitoring and mapping system keeps track of each tool's position and prevents inadvertent excavation of high radiation sources. The mobile work system structure is a bolted joint, steel gantry approximately 75 meters long, 30 meters wide and 20 meters high mounted over a 38 meter wide pit. The pit surface is completely confined by geomembrane liners deployed by the mobil worksystem during the retrieval operation.