Pre-conceptual design assessment of DEMO remote maintenance

Exploring Effects of Information Filtering With a VR Interface for Multi-Robot Supervision

Supervising and controlling remote robot systems currently requires many specialised operators to have knowledge of the internal state of the system in addition to the environment. For applications such as remote maintenance of future nuclear fusion reactors, the number of robots (and hence supervisors) required to maintain or decommission a facility is too large to be financially feasible. To address this issue, this work explores the idea of intelligently filtering information so that a single user can supervise multiple robots safely. We gathered feedback from participants using five methods for teleoperating a semi-autonomous multi-robot system via Virtual Reality (VR). We present a novel 3D interaction method to filter the displayed information to allow the user to read information from the environment without being overwhelmed. The novelty of the interface design is the link between Semantic and Spatial filtering and the hierarchical information contained within the multi robot system. We conducted a user study including a cohort of expert robot teleoperators comparing these methods; highlighting the significant effects of 3D interface design on the performance and perceived workload of a user teleoperating many robot agents in complex environments. The results from this experiment and subjective user feedback will inform future investigations that build upon this initial work.

A survey on new trends of digital twin technology for power systems

Recently, the Digital Twin (DT) technology, which joints the physical environment and virtual space, has drawn more attention in industry and research academic plans. In general, the virtual model representations of the physical objects are created in the DT manner to simulates the characteristics and behaviors of the real-word system. Applying a supervisory system not only can reduce the failures of components, but also preserve the overall costs associated with the system at a minimum. This paper reviews the DT applications in the power system, while its advantages in wind turbines, solar panels, power electronic converter, and shipboard electrical system will be briefly discussed. The potential benefits of contemporary technologies to ameliorate the DT in the industry are studied. Besides, it provides a great technique to assess and analyze system performance. As a basis for DT, various new emerging developments as an example of artificial intelligence (AI), big data, the internet of things (IoT), and 5 G are reviewed.

An integrated digital framework for the design, build and operation of fusion power plants

The development of a commercial fusion power plant presents a unique set of challenges associated with the complexity of the systems, the integration of novel technologies, the likely diversity and distribution of the organizations involved, and the scale of resources required. These challenges are reviewed and compared to those for other complex engineering systems. A framework for creating a digital environment that integrates research, test, design and operational data is discussed and is based on combining the integrated nuclear digital environment (INDE), proposed recently for nuclear fission power plants, with the hierarchical pyramid of test and simulation used in the aerospace industry. The framework offers the opportunity to plan modelling strategies that allow large design domains to be explored prior to optimizing a detailed design for construction; and in this context, the relationship between measurements and predictions are explored. The use of the framework to guide the socio-technical activity associated with a distributed and collaborative design process is discussed together with its potential benefits and the technology gaps that need to be addressed in order to realize them. These benefits include shorter development times, reduced costs and improvements in credibility, operability, reliability and safety.