Augmented reality telemanipulation system for nuclear reactor inspection

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Abstract
There has been an increasing need for faster and more reliable inspection of nuclear reactor vessels during scheduled inspection/refueling/repair outages. The inspection of such a complicated environment presents many challenges. During scheduled outages, the inspection platform (in our system a remotely operated miniature submarine) must be piloted efficiently to remote inspection locations, images and measurements of inspection locations presented to the human inspector, past information about this location recalled and viewed, and decisions made regarding repair activity scheduling. We are developing a new integrated system that employs augmented reality techniques to allow the inspection system operator to efficiently and reliably carry out these tasks. We describe a system that creates a realtime animated synthetic image of the underwater environment being inspected (drawn from CAD models of reactor components) in which a synthesized image of the inspection platform moves. The image is created with respect to an operator selected viewing point. A sensor measures the position and orientation of the actual mini-submarine, and these data are used by the graphics computer to continuously update the animated image. The images to be viewed can be either two or three dimensional. This information is used to assist in guiding the vehicle through the environment. The system display also integrates current inspection data (such as live video images) with past video frames or with past inspection reports and past data to allow fast and reliable inspection decisions to be made. Examples of typical operator display screens are included.

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