Adapting robots to sort radioactive debris on decommissioning sites

NRS Oldbury and RAICo are trialling teleoperated robotics for sorting Fuel Element Debris, replacing cumbersome manually-operated tools.

Fuel Element Debris (FED) – fragmented material from components that contain nuclear fuel – is highly radioactive. At Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS) Oldbury, a former nuclear power station in Gloucestershire being decommissioned by NRS on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), sorting FED has long relied on people using long-handled tools over walls.

Now, NRS is working with RAICo to investigate ways to replace this sorting process with robot arms, and so improve efficiency and move operators away from harm.

This work complements other robotics work happening at NRS Oldbury, such as Auto-SAS – a pioneering partnership using innovative technology to remotely and autonomously sort and segregate radioactive waste.

The challenge of the manual approach


NRS Oldbury’s current approach to sorting FED involves operators suiting up in full PPE, and using manual tools with grippers on the end, fed over thick protective walls (see image).

Grippers are observed via screens as operators try to carefully grasp irregular pieces of debris, and allocate them to different containers for disposal or processing.
 

Adapting robots to support human tasks

Since late 2025, RAICo has been working with NRS Oldbury to develop a haptic control system to allow more dexterous operation.

For the project, RAICo’s robotics control team selected a robot arm equipped with a two-finger gripper. It then developed a haptic teleoperated waste-sorting system, which allows operator movement to be translated directly from a haptic controller to the robot gripper, and feedback from the robot to be translated back to the operator.

The main challenge was integrating the haptic control system with the robot. RAICo selected a commercially available haptic device, and created bespoke software to link the device and the robot arm. The mathematics behind this control software is complicated, but once correct, it makes remote operation extremely intuitive.

Robot arms seem an obvious solution, allowing operators to perform this task from a safe distance from the debris. But sorting small pieces of waste relies heavily on human judgement and fine motor control – areas where teleoperated robot grippers struggle.

Digital support for operators 

In a complementary project, RAICo’s digital team prototyped a digital operator control interface for the teleoperated waste sorting robot. This involved integrating and adapting a RAICo-developed common digital platform – SPOCK (Single Point Operator Control Kit) – which provides a single interface for both controlling the robot arm, and viewing operational data. 

This lets operators view the robot on screen, via both a live camera feed, and a virtual 3D visualisation of the FED sorting cell. Onto those visuals, SPOCK overlays data from operational systems, such as robot status, sensor data, and task requirements. 

It also supports decisions with visual cues, such as grid overlays that show the positional relationship of objects in the cell, or by simulations of a planned robot move – where a ghost of the robot arm sweeps through the virtual cell – so operators can check the robot does not collide with anything before they execute the actual move.

Demonstrating robot sorting at NRS Oldbury

RAICo delivered an on-site inactive demo of both the haptic control system and digital user interface at NRS Oldbury in March 2026. The tools remained on site, and operators have since been familiarising the wider team with the demo system. Feedback so far has been highly positive, and RAICo and NRS are now working towards active trials of FED waste sorting on the Oldbury site, with the ultimate goal of full deployment. 

Scott Powell, Technical Manager, Robotics and AI at NRS, said, “This sort of innovation opens the door to deploying robots for tricky manual tasks like sorting radioactive debris, allowing human operators to perform them more efficiently and from a safe distance.”

“But it’s never as simple as just plugging in an off-the-shelf robot. There’s a huge amount of work to adapt it, so it works for operators. RAICo understood our challenges and came to the table with knowledge of the software and hardware that could help us – including much that had already been developed under the RAICo programme – and the expertise to adapt these into a workable solution for this specific use case.” 

Robots to remove people from harmful environments

This robotic system could improve the working environment for operators, who would be able to perform skilled sorting tasks from a safe distance, reducing risk of radiation exposure, physical strain, and the need for heavy protective equipment. It could even expand the role to operators who cannot work in restrictive environments.

It also lays the groundwork for future enhancements such as partial autonomy and digital training simulators. It also complements transformational work on autonomous sorting and segregation of waste.

Beyond this project, the underpinning technologies have wide-ranging possibilities for challenges across nuclear decommissioning, especially those involving hazardous, enclosed environments like hot cells and gloveboxes. This technology demonstration has already piqued interest from other NRS sites, and a similar project is well underway at the UKAEA’s Materials Research Facility (MRF), where both haptics and SPOCK are being explored to upgrade a robot arm used to unpack radioactive material samples.