Project AFFIRM - Update

Nuclear AMRC are integrating IONA and technology from Createc, into their modular intelligent manufacturing and inspection cell.

Having been granted £1 million in funding from Innovate UK’s Smart Grant programme, Project AFFIRM (advanced photogrammetry for flexible intelligent robotic manufacturing) is a two-year project focused on developing a new platform for robotic manufacturing and autonomous inspection.

Context:

In Nuclear manufacturing, welding is mostly a manual task. With there being a significant skills shortage in welders, a considerable effort is being made to use robots. Not only will this overcome the skills shortage, but it will also improve repeatability and all the other well-known benefits associated with using robots.

Currently, using robots for dynamic welding tasks such as seam welding is very challenging.

Objective:

Develop IONA to aid path planning and monitoring to increase capabilities of industrial robots so they can be reliably deployed for seam welding applications.

Progress:

A welding cell has been installed with IONA at Nuclear AMRC, Sheffield. Early results are looking promising, with strong end user engagement from Global Energy Group, Unipart Group and Sellafield.