EDF is in charge of the operation and maintenance of 58 nuclear reactors. The company has carried out a project, named START, aiming at using robots for maintenance in order to reduce costs and exposure and to improve the quality of operations. The main result of the START project is the development of a software tool used to rapidly design the control system of any robot or dedicated machine, so as to promptly answer unplanned maintenance demands. The START-Control software allows to design a wide variety of control systems, dedicated to very different machines, and for a large range of applications. START-Control has been developed in 1996/97 and is now available. Its first application has been to control a robot used to perform a repair welding on a reactor vessel penetration tube. The operation was successfully achieved on a mock-up of a 900 MW reactor vessel in April 1998. Another application consisted in renewing the control system of a mobile robot which is driven between the two vessels of the Superphenix fast breeder reactor in order to remotely control the welds. The next applications for 1999 are expected to be the renewal of the control system of a robot used to decontaminate and repair the pressuriser of a PWR, or the control of a robot dedicated to the replacement and the welding of a valve.
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