Drone designed to help clean up Fukishima
15 Jan 2014
A light-weight drone, designed to monitor radiation after a release of radioactive material, could help with the clean-up at the Fukishima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan.
Channel 4 News featured the drone on 'The March of the Machines,' taking it out for a test flight.
A team at the University of Bristol developed the drone, called the ARM system, in response to the nuclear incident at Fukishima to help detect radiation and prevent crews being exposed to harmful levels.
The drone is equipped with thermal cameras, on-board sensors and micro-computers. The working protoype is now close to commercial development and the team hope to take it to Fukishima in 2014.
The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and nuclear decommissioning firm Sellafield.
Dr Tom Scott, the project lead, says, "By using lightweight and low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles systems, we can immediately and remotely determine the spread and intensity of radiation following any such event.
"The systems have sufficient in-built intelligence to deploy them following an incident and are effectively disposable if they become contaminated."
The drone was built by Dr Oliver Payton and Dr James Macfarlane, members of Bristol's Interface Analysis Centre in the University of Bristol's School of Physics.