Light Duty Utility Arm

LDUA with Confined Sluicing End Effector

The Light Duty Utility Arm (LDUA) System is based on a robot that was designed and built by SPAR Aerospace on contract with the DOE for use in radioactive waste tanks. This robot is capable of reaching 40+ feet down and up to 16 feet out, through a 12-inch pipe that leads to the radioactive waste tank below.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has developed the expertise to use this robot in numerous applications and to design and fabricate end effectors that will perform different functions depending on the mission.

In the past, systems have been developed by other national laboratories, as well as PNNL, and PNNL has been responsible for integrating them with the LDUA system. PNNL staff also worked with SPAR on the first LDUA system to work out some of the problems they had with the first system delivered (there were no prototypes built). The LDUA robot at Hanford was used during 1996 to survey one of the hazardous waste tanks on the nuclear reservation, and another LDUA robot was used at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in 1997 to clean out one of their radioactive waste tanks.

LDUA System Design Concept

Systems design, integration and test

Successfully delivered four integrated mobile robotic arm and positioning systems for underground storage tanks:

Inspection and surveillance
Retrieval
Closure

Project Contact: J. Tucker