Mobile Robot Programming and

Detector Technology Analysis

Final Design Presentation

May 1, 2014

Alex Parker

Nichole McCoy

Johnnie Contreras

Tyler Colluro

Presentation Content

I.MRPT Algorithm

II.Thermal Imaging

III.Detectors

IV.Deployment Analysis

V.Integration and Conclusions

2

Objective Statement

• To create and model a Mobile Robot Programming

Toolkit, that has applicability in the Nuclear Engineering

field and more specifically accident analysis/awareness

intervention.

• Writing a useable code that is able to replicate in a 3-D

model it’s visualized environment through an Xbox

Kinect camera.

• A supporting cast of ranging detectors will be optimized

in order to be used with the main camera system to

provide meaningful data to the user.

3

MRPT Objective Statement: Tyler Colluro

• To utilize the Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit to model

any area which has applicability in the Nuclear

Engineering field and more specifically accident

analysis/awareness intervention.

• Writing a useable code that is able to replicate in a 3-D

model it’s visualized environment through an Xbox

Kinect camera.

4

What is MRPT?

• The MRPT (Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit) is a C++

code with accompanying libraries to allow a camera to

model its environment onto a computer

• The main functionality of the code comes from the SLAM

(simultaneous localization and mapping) algorithm

• The libraries that come with MRPT help the algorithm

receive proper data from the camera and draw it to the

screen

5

The SLAM algorithm

• The algorithm picks several points in series,

each point with different x,y,z coordinates

• It links them together to form a plane surface

• When enough planes are created near each

other, the algorithm “identifies” the actual

surface

• It then relays this data to the remainder of the

code so that it can be drawn

6

MRPT Application

• The purpose of the MRPT for this project

is to fully model areas such as rooms in a

nuclear power plant

• It can help guide first responders during an

emergency by finding a safer route or help

in day to day inspections

7

MRPT in Action

8

MRPT Limitations

• The program is only meant to handle one room at a time. Afterwards the model must be reset for remodeling to begin. This also means that the user must always be watching the model so that it can be reset when necessary since the program does not do it on its own.

• This is because all of the modeling must be confined to the space available on the screen being used. If too much area is covered, the entire model will be scaled down in size to fit more area and many details will be lost

• The “sight” range of the Kinect is much shorter than expected. The modeling process only works on objects within several yards of the Kinect. For aerial vehicles, a far better camera will be required

• If the Kinect faces a new surface too quickly, the resulting model will look patchy as some surfaces will be skipped

9

Problems Encountered

• Current versions of Microsoft Visual Studios, which helps display the results of the program, has a documented error in one of its library files that caused errors so a fix had to be found online

• Many of the library import lines of code were incorrect and referencing file locations that did not exist. Nearly one thousand lines of code had to be entirely rewritten with correct file paths

• Several parts of the program were not being connected with the rest of the code. The source of this error had to be back traced and had to implement a series of trial and error fixes until the error disappeared

10

11

• Thermal imaging in modern emergency response.

• Thermal cameras are used in personnel recovery and

detection of local hot spots in low visibility areas.

• Thermal imagery used is used for insulation optimization,

leading to the idea to use it for leak detection in nuclear

facilities.

Military Use

• The military uses thermal imaging in the field to access

targets in low visibility

• Thermal imaging has been used in the defense of

locations such as nuclear plants, petrochemical

installations, warehouses, ports and airports

• Military grade thermal imagery is widely used by UAV’s

Emergency Response

• In 2001 FEMA began issuing $100 million in

grants to U.S. Fire agencies under the FIRE act for

the purchase of new equipment (namely, new

thermal imagers)

• “Perhaps the best advance in fire equipment in

the last 25 years-and the most expensive (Los

Angeles Times, 2000)

12

Thermal Analysis Objectives

• Obtain accurate temperature measurements of nuclear facility systems remotely.

• Live stream thermal imagery directly to an easily readable display via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

• Use temperature results to improve emergency response to nuclear incidents.

13

Must-Have Design Capability

14

Emergency Response to Nuclear Incidents

• Help guide the robot vehicle through potentially hazardous high temperature environments.

• Provide first responders with useful information of the environment for safe navigation.

• Locate and identify the most hazardous regions within the accident location.

• Results indicate a high level of usability in an accident scenario

Experimentation and Testing

15

Serious Accident with Potential Danger to Emergency Response

ii. Emissivity setting determined using the emissivity of 316 stainless steel at approximately 300° C

Experimentation and Testing

• Interested in how the camera

perceives high temperatures.

• Emissivity and distance set for

316 stainless steel at 5 meters.

• Does not read air temperature!

• Results are appropriate.

• Impressive distinction between

high temperature and very high

temperature. (over 1000ºF)16

17

Daily Operation of Nuclear Facilities

• Daily monitoring of nuclear facilities in order to make the robot more

economically feasible.

• Mapping and monitoring of steam lines during normal operation in order

to determine where leaks may be present.

• Use thermal data to better insulate locations of significant heat loss.

(Resulting in energy loss in the steam)

18

Experimentation and Testing

19

Daily Maintenance and Operation of a Standard Operation Nuclear Power Plant

i. Emissivity setting determined using the emissivity of 316 stainless steel at approximately 300° C

Experimentation and Testing

20

Nice to Have Design Features

• Ability to obtain accurate temperature measurements from long ranges for use in aerial drones.

• Applicable in level 6-7 events where containment/facility structures have severe damage.

• Moderate distances do not appear to affect the temperature readings.

21

Temperature Accuracy Testing

Thermometer vs. Thermal Camera

• A glass of room temperature

water was used to compare

temperature readings.

• Interested in the proper

emissivity settings and how

distance effects temperature data

point gathering

• The distance from the object

does not change the temperature

reading.

• We know that the settings are

appropriate!

22

Main Objective for Detectors: John Contreras

• A supporting cast of ranging detectors will be optimized

in order to be used with the main camera system to

provide meaningful data to the user.

• Coding the detectors uploading capability to be more

informative when existing with a camera system then

simply by hand.

• Have ample amount of data collection to allow engineers

to be able to make decisions regarding safety analysis.

23

• Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices by Microsoft for Xbox

360 and Xbox One video game consoles and Windows PCs

• Kinect has a two camera overlay system. Using 3-D, thermal, and an

infrared sensor as its camera optics.

• Kinect builds on software technology developed internally by Rare,

which developed a system that can interpret specific gestures, making

completely hands-free control of electronic devices possible by using

an infrared projector and camera and a special microchip to track the

movement of objects and individuals in three dimensions.

24

MAESTRO MCA Emulation Software• The spectrum window is often the primary

user focus when using MAESTRO and up

to eight live detectors and eight saved

spectra can be displayed concurrently.

• When viewing a live detector, the spectrum

view is updated in real time and provides

current spectral data, live peak calculations,

and hardware properties

• The interface between hardware and

software is provided through the ORTEC

CONNECTIONS framework. This

application layer encompasses all of the

hardware drivers and communication

protocols that are necessary for software

applications to control the MCB

instruments.

25

MAESTRO MCA: Advanced Functions

• Nuclide identification from libraries

tailored to the application, isotope

markers that show the location of

the library energies and an

assumption driven estimation

occurs to confirm its identity.

• A very important factor is the

ability to control number of

channels averaged to determine

background through multiple

selection of detectors.

• Using the Mariscotti Peak search

to locate areas of interest is done

internally

26

MAESTRO MCA: Sample Data Acquisition

• Sample environment showing a spill inside a

contained area, allows the concentration to show

by calculating 1/R as the count rate decreases

exponentionally.

• Quality of results increase as the

knowledge of the program and

detector increased. Much more

efficient at gathering data as well.27

28

• Using FLUKA which is a Monte Carlo simulation package

used for interaction between transport and interaction of

particles and nuclei in matter

• Defining the parameters of conditions that can generally be

seen in plant operations.

Lead Glass Concrete Human Units

Particle Numbers 1500 1500 1500

Thickness 5 20 30 cm

Height 100 200 60 cm

Width 100 200 28 cm

Density 3.1 2.35 1 g/cm3

29

Energy in Glass 5.78E-02 GeV/cm3/particle → 8.66E+01 GeV/cm3

Energy Escaped 1.88E-01 GeV/cm3/particle → 9.41E-01 GeV/cm3

Dose of Glass 4.30E-05 Gy → 4.30E+01 mrem

Energy in Concrete 0.236202 GeV/cm3/particle → 354.3024 GeV/cm3 → 2.83E+08 GeV

Energy Escaped 0 GeV/cm3/particle → 0 GeV/cm3 →

Dose of Concrete 0.000133 Gray → 133.3989 mrem

FLUKA Simulation Analysis• Sample environment using samples of lead that can be found after some type

of accident.

• Sample exposure to actual environment on a small 10ft x 10ft scale to show

evidence of actual radiation leak exposure.

30

Scintillation Parameters

• Luminescent

materials, when struck

by an incoming

particle, absorb its

energy and scintillate

energy in the form of

light.

• PMT's absorb the light

emitted by the

scintillator and reemit it

in the form of electrons

via the photoelectric

effect.

31

• The detector above is known as the

digiBASE-E High Performance, Ethernet

All-In-A-PMT-Base Digital Gamma

Spectrometer.

• This detector is optimized for the ranges

that the autonomous vehicle would be

exposed to using PoE to power the

device this solves part of the energy

issue we were having

• The Multi-channel Analyzed is the main

driving force in the detector analysis portion of

the project.

• Analyzing a stream of voltage pulses and

sorts them into a histogram or spectrum of

number of events versus pulse-height which

may often relate to energy or time.

32

33

• Being able to appropriate results calibrated to a video recording device,

that allows enough data points to provide a meaningful simulation for the

viewer.

• The detectors would not be able to operate at 100% efficiency with this

since ideal placement and location would not be so easily accessible.

• The range of detectors available had to meet certain criteria: portability,

Wi-Fi application, resistance to point radiation, data acquisition software.

• All our current efforts have been bettered with increasing technology,

cheaper material costs and finally more cohesive interactions between

different detectors

34

Detectors

• To have a reasonable detector network that can co-exist

with the MRV and provide useful and accurate data to be

used in a safety analysis.

• To have absolute synchronization with the detector network

we created, to be able to identify issues within the

environment itself and adjust its course of action

• The software and coding that has been created for the project serves as more

than just a guideline and actually is the most accurate and easily accessible way

to establish the parameters in the environment or routine scans.

• On expanding the detector network and what results are able to be seen and

possibly predict what occurs within a few hours after accidents. Having an

understanding of the basic programs and functions during the first portion of the

project will lead to very significant results in the second portion as the software

had very large learning curve and provide a large amount of errors with little

outside help.

Xbox One Kinect (2013)

35

Integration of Parts

• Since the Kinect is the focal point of the project, it seemed most fitting if the code was altered to integrate the other parts of this project

• Several ideas were made: overlaying ,map “pings”, and screen shotting but none of these proved to be adequate

• The overlaying method involved having the outputs from the thermal camera and MRPT “sitting” on top of each other

• This proved to be very difficult since the MRPT’s output is not in the form of a video feed. It was then considered to try “coloring” the MRPT output map with the images from the thermal camera but that would involve directly interfacing with the camera through coding

36

Integration of Parts Cont.

• The map “pings” idea involved placing markers on the map whenever the user hit a certain key on the keyboard. Different keys would place different colored pings on the map to indicate different things found such as abnormal thermal gradients or radiation

• This proved unsuccessful for two reasons: if the pings became a part of the map, the MRPT could draw over it again if the Kinect were to look in the direction of where the ping was placed. If the ping were arbitrarily floating over the map, the ping would become misrepresentative of the desired location as the model became scaled down

• The final thought was to use a system of screen shotting. The user could take a screen shot of the model whenever they wanted by using a key. They could do this for a number reasons including detecting something abnormal from the detectors or to keep a log of every room the device passes through

37

Future Work

• This project has plenty of potential to be used in the real world and as it sits, it isn’t too far from that

• In order to properly integrate the different devices, all the parts would need to be able to interact with the MRPT code through device drivers. This implies that all of the necessary drivers would need to be made since neither of the other devices used came with the drivers needed

• If this can be done, the program will be able to access data from each of them as it would the Kinect. It could handle placing static markers on the map on its own without user intervention

38

Deployment Analysis

• Radiation Damage to Electronics

• High Temperature Electronics

• Accident Environment Analysis

• Shielding Requirements

• Cost Analysis

39

Radiation Damage to Electronics

Three typical radiation effects

• Physical effects- disruption of a material by the displacement of atoms within a crystal. Such as the reduction in the amplification factors of transistors

• Chemical effects- breaking of chemical bonds or the formation of new bonds due to radiation. These chemical effects can cause material to undergo changes. Such as rolled paper expanding out of its case in a capacitor due to radiation degradation of the oil.

• Ionizing effects- creates electrical paths that allow electric charges to break down isolations and barriers. Such as leakage currents of insulators or semiconductors that can be large and temporary.

40

Radiation Damage to

Electronics

• Study from ASTRA research reactor in Seibersdorf, Austria. Table shows the sensitivity of electronics to gamma radiation (60Co source).

• Majority of components are stable to an absorbed dose of 1000 Gy.

• At 109 Gy, most components no longer operate.

• Want to account for the lowest dose that causes damage.

41

High Temperature Electronics

• High temperature use is categorized to be above 150 °C which ,in the case

of fires/explosions/core melt, is very easily reached.

• Below is a table with Max Rated Temperatures of a few electronic

components.

• Therefore, want to keep temperature below 175 °C or provide thermal

shielding.

42

Accident Environment Analysis

• Based on the International Nuclear Event Scale created by the IAEA

• Provides basic on and offsite implications of various level incidents/accidents

43

Accident Environment Analysis

Level 7: Case Study-Chernobyl NPP

• External release quantities are radiologically equivalent to more than 10,000’s TBq of Iodine-131. (Multiplication factor for other relevant isotopes)

• Extreme Damage to the installation

• High on-site dose rates (.03-300 Sv/hr)- No radiation detectors survived the accident. These reading were taken shortly after with a portable device.

• Thermal Considerations: Steam explosion, fire and core material released

44

Accident Environment Analysis

Level 6 : External release radiologically equivalent to 1000’s to 10,000’s of TBq 131I. (The Kyshtym Disaster)

Level 5 : External release radiologically equivalent to 100s to 1000’s of TBq 131I. (Three Mile Island)

• Severe to significant installation damage

• High on-site radiation levels (not as severe off-site)

• Thermal Considerations: Explosion, fire, partial core melting

45

Accident Environment Analysis

For lower level accidents/incidents(4-1):

• Little to no offsite release of radioactive material

• Level 4- Overexposure with likelihood of early

death

• Level 1- Exceed annual worker dose limit

• Installation damage not severe.

46

Accident Environment Analysis

Rating

Level Radiation Onsite

External Radiation

Release Thermal Considerations

7

High: Chernobyl Dose Rates

ranged 300-0.03 Sv/hr 10,000's TBq

Core Melting, LOCA, Explosions

and/or Fire

6 High 1000's-10000's TBq

Core Melting, LOCA, Explosions

and/or Fire

5 High: 370 Ebq in containment 100's-1000's TBq

Partial Core Melting, LOCA,

Explosions and/or Fire

4 1000's TBq in Primary few mSv

Partial Core Melting, LOCA,

Explosions and/or Fire

3 1000's TBq in Secondary .01mSv Normal Op

2 50 mSv/hr None Normal Op

1 Exceed Worker annual Limits None Normal Op

0 None None Normal Op

47

Shielding

Revisiting Level 7-

Chernobyl Accident

• Using Rad Pro

Calculator

• Desired Dose

rate set to

background

• For electronics,

dose rate can be

significantly

higher than

background

LocationSieverts per

hour (SI Unit)

Shielding (Lead in cm)

required for desired dose rateConcrete in cm

Vicinity of the reactor

core300 12.4 80.8

Fuel fragments 150–200 11.8-12 77.2-78.7

Debris heap at the

place of circulation

pumps

100 11.5 75.2

Debris near the

electrolyzers50–150 11-11.8 71.6-77.2

Water in the Level +25

feedwater room50 11 71.6

Level 0 of the turbine

hall5–150 9.2-11.8 60-77.2

Area of the affected

unit10–15 9.7-10.1 63.5-65.5

Water in Room 712 10 9.7 63.5

Control room 0.03–0.05 5.2-5.6 35.5-37.8

Hydropower

Installation0.3 7 46.3

Nearby concrete

mixing unit0.10–0.15 6.1-6.4 41.1-43

48

Rad Pro Calculator

49

Issues with Shielding

• Radiation readings will not be accurate if shielding included

• Thermal readings will not be accurate with shielding

• The best radiation shielding materials are the worst at thermal shielding

• The best thermal shielding material requires a lot more shielding

50

Thermal

Conductivity of

Lead is 34.7 W/m

K

Thermal

Conductivity of

Concrete is 0.8

W/m K

Cost Analysis

Component Cost

Microsoft Kinect $150

FLIR Thermal Imager $4000-8000(Resolution)

Radiation Detector $1200

Total Cost of Imaging Device Only $5350-9350

51

Cost Analysis

Probabilistic Approach. Actual cost

will depend greatly on the robotics

used.

52

Cost Analysis

53

JOHN CONTRERAS - Detectors

• To have a reasonable detector network that can co-exist with the

MRV and provide useful and accurate data to be used in a safety

analysis.

TYLER CULLERO – Algorithm Analysis

• To allow the syncing of the image capture system to overlay

its data to depict a useful 3-D environment where the detector

portion can interact and associate values on the output video.

ALEX PARKER – Thermal Analysis

• To be able to overlay the image results from the thermal

analysis and have them synchronize using some type of time-

dependent analysis that can interact with the set of algorithms.

NICHOLE MCCOY- Deployment Analysis

• To optimize the design by exploring various level

events. This will provide thermal and radiation

ranges that the device could be exposed to and

provide a basis for shielding requirements. 54

AcknowledgementsWithout the help of these individuals our project would have not been the amazing

journey and experience we were all able to go through the semester, so thank you

all for your input and knowledge.

Dr. Cable Kurwitz Texas A&M Technical Advisor

Dr. Karen Vierow Texas A&M Associate Professor

Rodolfo Vaghetto Texas A&M

55

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QUESTIONS?

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