Keynote Speech 1: Reactions of robot critical components to nuclear radiation

Abstract

A typical robotic system includes a few key components, which are motor, speed reducer, drive, controller, power supply, and mechanical frame, in both robot manipulators and/or mobile robots (wheeled or legged). While all the components are necessary, three individuals are critical and stand out, which are speed reducer, motor, and battery (especially Lithium-ion battery), respectively. The reason for those is twofold: failure of any of them will fail the entire system, and the cost of the three takes more than 80% of the total cost. In the robotic field, we have seen numerous works studying/improving the performance of a robot at the system level but very few focusing at the component level, especially when a robot operates in the nuclear environment. Radiation damage to electronic devices (including H-bridge drives) has long been studied in both theory and experiment. The study on the three critical components has received much less attention. In this talk we report our current studies on the radiation impact to harmonic drive (a speed reducer used in high-end robotic systems), brushless DC motor, and Lithium-ion battery. Our studies have invented new approaches for evaluating the performance of individual components, and reveal how the radiation will affect the performance of the latter. Both theoretical and experimental studies will be presented. The degraded performance of the components may impact or even fail the entire system, regardless of it being a robot manipulator or a mobile robot. We will therefore discuss how to design and develop radiation-hardened components, which can endure a robot in radiation-filled environments.