Development of a long reach articulated manipulator for ITER in vessel inspection under vacuum and temperature

This project takes place in the EFDA Remote Handling (RH) activities for the fusion reactor International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The aim of the R&D program is to demonstrate the feasibility of in-vessel RH intervention by a long reach, limited payload manipulator which penetrates the first wall using the six IVVS penetrations. Potential activities for this device include close inspection of the plasma facing surfaces and leak detection. The work includes the design, manufacture and testing of a demonstrator articulated manipulator called the In-Vessel Penetrator (IVP). The first part of this work concerned the analysis of the requirements and resulted in the development of the conceptual design of the overall manipulator, comprising a 5 module, 11 d.o.f robot based on a parallelogram structure. A scale one mock up of a representative segment was manufactured and tested. In parallel, a feasibility study of the IVP operation was made and provided recommendations to modify the design for intervention under vacuum and temperature. Some technologies were selected and analysed to determine their suitability to the IVP application and items identified for further validation. This paper presents the whole robot concept, the results of the test campaign on the prototype demonstrator and the vacuum and temperature technologies study. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.