The NAVCAM project aims to design and build a flexible camera head which can have its shape and direction of travel manipulated remotely. To achieve this, Forth Engineering will develop a soft robotic, pneumatic muscle which will support a camera sensor. The pneumatic muscle and the camera head will be supported by a tether providing electrical and pneumatic connections back to a remote operator. The purpose of this development is to allow better access to fresh water supply pipelines providing water companies with a more reliable and cost-effective means of surveying pipelines for internal damage. Currently, the cameras that are fed into the water network have a spring connection between the camera and the tether. This allows them to be pushed around corners but does not allow for control of the direction once when faced with a junction in the pipe. Also, current technology doesn't allow cameras to navigate through the most common type 2 hydrants and therefore this can lead outages and disruptive excavations. NAVCAM provides camera operators the freedom to navigate a planned inspection route thus saving time and allowing for more effective identification of leakage points. Throughout development and production, the NAVCAM project will utilise state of the art additive manufacturing techniques. This provides greater design flexibility and allows for cost effective prototyping. It will also help the subfield of soft robotics in its transition from R&D to real world applications. Once the solution has been developed for use in the inspection of pipe networks, it is predicted that there will be numerous opportunities for further development across multiple industries. In addition to the soft robotics development. The project will also develop mechanical solutions for accessing live water pipes without loss of pressure and for driving the camera and the tether into the pipe network without manual input from the operator.

To develop, embed and exploit advanced mechatronics and control systems expertise for application in bespoke robotic solutions for extreme environments.

Pressure vessels are safety critical infrastructure, present across many industries such as oil and gas, nuclear, petrochemical and aerospace. Assuring the safety of these ageing assets is increasingly important, as there have been many fatal failures in the past. This is affected via regular assessments of fitness for service, which are regulated by exacting industry standards. The standards specify that a full volumetric inspection of pressure vessels must be carried out every five years. 20% of pressure vessels in the oil and gas industry cannot be inspected externally and internal inspections require production shutdown. Industry have publicised the need to remove humans from these **dull, dirty, dangerous and demanding** environments. Therefore industry is pushing for non-intrusive robotic inspections Internal inspection has significant cost and health and safety risk associated with it: in order to carry out such inspection, the operator must stop production, depressurise, store extracted fluid, vent , etc. The total cost associated with these activities can easily exceed £1M within a few days. More importantly, these tasks are currently carried out by human operators. It is not possible for humans to carry out inspection on these assets without breaking containment, the only way to do so, is via robotics and artificial intelligence. Providing such solutions is our main motivation. CHIMERA is a semi-autonomous robotic crawler for internal pressure vessel inspection, maintenance and repair. It can be deployed into the pressure vessel without breaking containment via an innovative bolt on headworks. The current version is equipped with sensors for self-localisation, brush for cleaning vessel walls (both in air), ultrasonic inspection system (capable of functioning in water), supplied with AI, which creates corrosion maps and reasoned maintenance and repair plans and a slender arm for visual inspection and repair in aeroengines. The project is coming to an end, with testing and demonstrations of the crawler about to start and the slender arm demonstrations delayed by six months due to COVID-19. It is proposed to develop the next better integrated version of CHIMERA - CHIMERA 2, with both navigation and ultrasonic systems capable of functioning in a vessel half-filled with water and the robotic arm suitable for inspection of aircraft wings too. There are close ties between the consortium and the targeted industries, providing a direct route to market/exploitation. The members propose to exploit them and demonstrate a fully integrated version, CHIMERA 2, to external stakeholders at the end of the new project.

On-going nuclear decommissioning activities in the UK currently cost £3 billion per year and it is estimated that nearly 5 million tonnes of new waste are still to be generated from future decommissioning work spanning the next 100 years. Over 90% of this waste will be categorised as low-level waste (LLW) and its efficient separation from waste with a higher radioactive content (intermediate level waste - ILW) will help to reduce future waste management costs and open up new opportunities for increased recycling of waste. Utilising an innovative combination of robotics, sensor technology and advanced AI, SmartDecay has the potential to radically improve the efficiency with which different types of intermediate and low-level radioactive waste are sorted and segregated, significantly lowering nuclear waste processing costs. The deployment of (semi-)autonomous robotic systems will result in a reduction in the number of direct human interactions with waste and associated handling equipment. This helps to minimise exposure to harmful radiation, lower the probability of work-related injuries and reduce the overall risk to operator health. Radiation sensors attached to the robot will measure and record the radioactive content of every piece of waste enabling classification as either ILW or LLW. Automated 3D scanners and X-ray fluorescence equipment will then be utilised to further analyse waste - determining its size/shape through generation of a digitised 3D model and classifying the waste by material type. After detailed analysis, waste samples will be moved into a temporary segregation area pre-marked with RF-ID tags that will enable the robot to identify specific locations to place waste classified by radioactive content and material type. After segregation, machine learning algorithms will be developed, and high-performance edge computing resources will be deployed to establish optimal packing order for each classification of waste items into appropriate drums and pallet boxes. Final packing of waste containers will be performed by a robot that will utilise state-of-the-art simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) for autonomous navigation around the segregation area. Effective separation of decommissioning waste according to radioactive content and material type will also help to boost opportunities for increasing recycling activities.

"UK policy targets 15% green power generation by 2020 and 57% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030\. This has led to a significant growth in installed wind power capacity within the last decade (especially in offshore wind power in the UK) to 18.9 GW in the UK and 539 GW globally. The UK market has multiplied 10-fold, supplying 5.4% of the UK's electricity consumption in 2016\. Turbine blades are subjected to gusting wind loads, driving the accumulation of fatigue damage in the blade structures, leading to failures. Around 3,800 blade failures a year are attributed to poor maintenance. Preventative inspection every 3-4 months and maintenance every 6 months is necessary, costing between £70,000 and £700,000 each. Accidents and fatalities are also quite prevalent: 2,265 accidents to June 2018, with fatalities accounting for 6% and injuries 7%. This phase 2 further develops RADBLAD, a first-of-its-kind magnetically-adhering wall-climbing robot, with manipulator arm that deploys the x-ray system around a blade. An end effector holds the source and detector against the blade, so they move with the blade in the presence of 3-D blade vibrations. A crucial and novel extension of RADBLAD lies in the use of a radiographic system for inspection and in providing an integrated solution that offers high-quality, efficient inspection method, which is human safe. Unlike radiography, RADBLAD does not require costly, time-consuming onshore dismantling of blades and transportation to workshop, inspection in x-ray bays and return and reassembly, taking around 10-days during which revenue is lost due to generating downtime. Contact methods, e.g. ultrasound volume inspection, are less effective on multi-layered composite structures, and more difficult to perform on-site. RADBLAD is also faster and cheaper than onshore inspection (not counting loss of revenue due to turbine downtime). To successfully achieve this, the project consortium features the relevant expertise, including robotic development and manufacture, radiography development, and AI algorithm software development. Our initial target market is the offshore wind turbine operation and maintenance market, with wind farm asset operators the target users. This project represents a clear technological innovation for the UK offshore wind generation industry, and major growth opportunity for the SME supply chain consortium."

Pressure vessels are considered safety critical infrastructure and are present across many industries such as oil and gas, nuclear, petrochemical etc. Assuring the safety of these ageing assets is increasingly important for these industries as there have been many fatal failures in the past. Internal pressure vessel inspection has significant cost and health and safety risk associated with it and is required at specific intervals by industry codes/standards. In order to carry out internal inspection, the operator must; stop production, depressurise, store extracted fluid, vent etc. The total cost associated with these activities can easily exceed £1M within a few days depending on the production facility. More importantly, these tasks are currently carried out by humans and the hazardous environments have led to many injuries/fatalities. It is not possible for humans to carry out inspection on these assets without breaking containment, the only way to do so, is via robotics and artificial intelligence. CHIMERA is a semi-autonomous robotic platform for internal pressure vessel inspection, repair and maintenance. It will be deployed into the pressure vessel without breaking containment via an innovative bolt on headworks. It will be equipped with a sludge/sediment vacuum to clean the pressure vessel, an ultrasonic phased array inspection system and a slender arm for inspection and repair in confined spaces. To successfully deliver this, a consortium of experts has been formed with capabilities in robotics, inspection, navigation, in situ repair, AI, civil nuclear and oil and gas. There are close ties between the consortium and the targeted industries, providing a direct route to market/exploitation. CHIMERA represents a clear technological innovation for the UK pressure vessel inspection market with a major growth opportunity for the SME supply chain in the consortium.

Underwater robots are increasingly utilised for commercial and scientific applications to make measurements and interact with the underwater environment. The A2I2 (Autonomous Aquatic Inspection and Intervention) robots will operate in hazardous underwater environments, for offshore renewables, oil and gas, and nuclear applications. Two specific intervention use-cases will be addressed through demonstrators; offshore coring, and wet nuclear storage pond inspections and interactions. These demonstrators are significantly different and therefore enable the project to address multiple market opportunities. This project will address the need for new approaches that are required to permit operation near to critical infrastructure. These will include increased intelligence on the underwater robots to enable them to position themselves and navigate avoiding collision with the surrounding environment.

"Steel pipelines corrode due to of the nature of the liquids they contain. Also, cracks can form over time leading to failure and leakage of the contents, resulting in severe economic losses and environmental pollution. To avoid this, inspection, evaluation, and repair activities are performed periodically. Internal cracks and areas of corrosion and metal loss are monitored by the use of intelligent inspection devices (PIGs) which carry special sensors. Sections of pipeline that are found to be likely to fail are reinforced using an externally applied bolt-on clamp which is both costly and is difficult and dangerous to install. The FSWBot project will see the development of a radical new solution to internal corrosion and cracks that form inside pipelines. Meeting the objective will result in a much cheaper, safer repair process that will enable pipeline asset owners and their service providers to produce very high- quality welds in steel pipelines without shutting down and purging petroleum pipelines and without the use of divers and surface vessels. This is of enormous importance especially in respect to inaccessible pipelines and those which are installed in parallel groups where space around pipes is restricted. The objective of the project is to develop a robotic platform with a payload consisting of unique hydraulic friction stir welding equipment which produces no sparks. Data obtained by prior high-resolution mapping of anomalies that are produced by metal loss and corrosion will be used to provide information for mission planning. Repair will be carried out in-situ using no external power and no welding consumables. The robot will generate electricity from the liquid flow in the pipeline via a variable pitch turbine diving a generator, which will supply power to a hydraulic pump and a battery which drives the magnetic tracks. FSWBot will bring about a step change in the competitiveness and growth for 3 UK business -- namely Forth Engineering, Proserv and Innvotek."

To embed and exploit advanced acoustic communications and positioning expertise to build, evaluate and deploy the AVEXIS underwater exploration vehicles for application in the monitoring and characterization of wet nuclear storage facilities.

To embed and exploit advanced electronics and robotics expertise to design, build and test a robotic spider (octopod) that can be used in the monitoring and decommissioning of both dry and wet nuclear storage facilities.

This project aims to develop a remote mobile cutting and retrieval platform for the decommissioning of legacy storage facilities based around a robotic spider. Access to the storage facilities is often limited, so a robot which can move around and retrieve the waste would speed up the process. It is envisaged that such a vehicle could be used in both dry and wet storage facilities