The UK's nuclear clean-up currently requires workers in full protective gear to enter highly radioactive environments—over 1 million such suited entries will be needed just to decommission the THORP plant at Sellafield. This matters because the nuclear industry faces a vast, decades-long decommissioning challenge: roughly 3,000 tonnes of high-level waste, 310,000 tonnes of intermediate-level waste, and hundreds of radioactive facilities across the UK. Current manual operations are slow, hazardous, and generate additional contaminated waste from protective equipment. Future fusion reactors will also be impossible to operate without advances in remote handling. RAIN+ aims to develop robotic and AI systems that can replace human entry into these dangerous environments. If successful, the technology could transform nuclear decommissioning from a slow, risky manual process into one managed remotely by machines. The same robotic solutions could also apply to other hazardous industries—agriculture, construction, offshore energy, and healthcare—potentially creating a single hub for robotics in all challenging environments.
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The nuclear industry has a vast array of highly complex and diverse challenges that span decommissioning, waste management, fission power plants, advanced modular reactors and fusion reactors. In the UK, one of the most significant challenges is to decommission legacy storage facilities. There is estimated to be approximately 3,000 tonnes of high-level waste (HLW), 310,000 tonnes of intermediate level waste (ILW) and hundreds of radioactive facilities that need to be decommissioned in the UK alone. Despite significant progress during the first phase of RAIN, decommissioning continues to rely almost exclusively on manual operations, requiring people to enter extremely hazardous environments placing themselves at risk. Significant amounts of personal protective equipment (PPE) is required, which reduces dexterity and lowers productivity to levels significantly below that of other industries. PPE also adds significantly to the waste materials that must be disposed of and as a consequence, makes some future operations infeasible. For example, it has been estimated that more than 1 million suited entries will be required to decommission the THORP plant alone on the Sellafield site. RAI technologies are therefore considered essential if the UK is to address its decommissioning challenges. In the future generation of nuclear power, fusion reactors will not be able to operate without advances being made to remote handling equipment. In addition, remote inspection and maintenance of new fission reactors is essential if they are to be commercially viable. RAIN+ will continue to push the boundaries of Robotics and AI (RAI) science, developing robotic solutions that solve major challenges facing the nuclear sector. To ensure that the work is relevant, has a long-term impact on industry, and leads to deployments of RAI technology into active facilities, RAIN will continue to work in close partnership with nuclear end-users, the supply chain and regulators. Furthermore, recognising that many of the hazards encountered in the nuclear industry are prevalent in other industry sectors, such as agriculture, construction, offshore and healthcare, RAIN will work to expand its user and application base such that RAI solutions can be developed that have cross-sector relevance and a single hub for all challenging environments, not just nuclear, can be established towards the end of this second phase.
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