The Development of Underwater Robotic System and Its application to Visual Inspection of Nuclear Reactor Internals

수중로봇 시스템의 개발과 원자로 압력용기 육안검사에의 적용

An underwater robotic system has been developed and applied to visual inspection of reactor vessel internals. The Korea Electric Power Robot for Visual Test (KeproVt) consists of an underwater robot, a vision processor-based measuring unit, a master control station and a servo control station. The robot guided by the control station with the measuring unit can be controlled to have any motion at any position in the reactor vessel with $\pm$1 cm positioning and $\pm$2 degrees heading accuracies with enough precision to inspect reactor internals. A simple and fast installation process is emphasized in the developed system. The developed robotic system was successfully deployed at the Younggwang Nuclear Unit 1 for the visual inspection of reactor internals.