The participants in the Enrich robotics competition (EuropeaN RobotICs Hackathon) have to show a lot of ingenuity. In the world’s safest nuclear power plant in Zwentendorf, Austria, they are tackling tasks this week that could resemble a catastrophe.
The nuclear power plant on the Danube was completed, but never went into operation after an annual referendum in 1978. Since no area is irradiated, the facility is ideal for exercises. For the robot competition Enrich the task is to find easily radioactive material.
The team’s robot, RoboTHIx, which was only put together by students at the Technical University of Ingolstadt in the last two months, could not reach all rooms due to its equipment. Even so, the team managed to locate a source of radiation because the robot was close enough to the starting point – the operator could hear the creak of the Geiger counter. In conjunction with the two-dimensional map that was created while driving, the team was able to determine the origin of the radiation with sufficient accuracy. The team hopes to be able to create a three-dimensional map by the second run on Thursday.
Austrians send 2 robots to the doll
The Dynamics team at the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences demonstrated a talent for improvisation when it came to recovering a twelve-kilogram doll. It represented an injured person. Before that, Dynamics had succeeded in an astonishingly short time in using a chain-driven robot to locate the radiation sources hidden in metal tubes and to close the correct valves.
The Upper Austrian team used the remaining time to help the second, wheel-driven robot with the rescue. He only has one rigid arm with a hook. It proved too difficult to tuck the hook under the doll’s belt. The other robot, in turn, was equipped with a manipulator that was optimized for closing the valves, but could not grip. The Austrians tried to solve the task with these two suboptimally equipped robots.
Even if this was not crowned with success, the attempt and the developed imagination were remarkable and corresponded to the spirit of the event: Even real rescue workers somehow have to cope with the available resources.
Remote control with VR glasses
At the same time, Enrich offers the opportunity to try out new technologies. The Fraunhofer FKIE team started with a robot whose arm was controlled by an operator with virtual reality glasses. Via this display, the robot can also be given waypoints, which it can then approach independently. However, in the event of bottlenecks and other difficult spots, another operator must take control.
RoboTHIx, TH Ingolstadt
The robot from the RoboTHIx team begins its exploratory journey. (Image: Hans-Arthur Marsiske)
The 40-meter-high shaft through which flying robots were supposed to enter the reactor room posed a particular challenge. It turned out that more insidious air currents endanger the stability of the drones. The British team’s LUCAS quadrocopter crashed after flying up almost the entire shaft. The team members said it had nothing to do with turbulence. They suspected an error in the self-localization of the flying drone based on given waypoints.
Quadcopter flies through long pipe
The only other team that took up this challenge was more successful. This may be due to the fact that the significantly larger quadrocopter from the Southwest Research Institute has a more stable flight attitude. The flying drone crossed the shaft without any problems, then hovered for a while in the reactor room and used its laser scanner to create a three-dimensional map with a resolution of three meters per voxel.
Immediately after the flight it was not yet clear whether the radiation sources could also be correctly located on this map. To do this, the data must first be processed. The last day of competition, Thursday, provides information on this. And if you don’t succeed, as with all teams, there is an opportunity to try again.
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