NERO: A Teleoperated Wall Climbing Vehicle for Assisting Inspection of a Nuclear Reactor Pressure Vessel

Abstract

Abstract NERO is a series of teleoperated wall climbing vehicles. Each vehicle carries a specific tool for assisting inspection of a nuclear reactor pressure vessel in the U.K. They adopted a simple sliding frame walking mechanism to cope with 250mm head room and 25mm obstacles on the surface. Vacuum suckers are used by the vehicle for climbing vertical surface. The NERO vehicle is driven remotely by an operator via a control console. The status of the vehicle and the control console is displayed on the console’s computer monitor. These vehicles completed their tasks successfully by September 1992.