Diagnostics carried by a light multipurpose deployer for vacuum vessel interventions

Abstract

ITER will greatly rely on remote-handling operations to accomplish its scientific missions. Robotic systems will also be required to operate inside vacuum vessels in order to limit or replace human access, to intervene quickly between experimental sessions for in-vessel inspections and measurements, and to preserve the machine conditioning and thus improve machine availability. In this prospect, a multipurpose carrier prototype called Articulated Inspection Arm (AIA) was developed by CEA laboratories within the European work program. With an embedded camera, it successfully demonstrated close inspection feasibility inside Tore Supra tokamak. The AIA robot was designed for mini-invasive operations with interchangeable diagnostics to be plugged at its head. This covers various applications for the safety, the operation and the scientific mission (in-vessel inspection, plasma diagnostics calibrations or inner components analysis and treatments). This paper presents recent analysis and results obtain with diagnostics developed by CEA for in-vessel remote-handling intervention.