Nuclear
The nuclear applications are at the origin of the haptics technology from Haption. In the nuclear field, the idea of replacing men by robot was studied very early, for obvious reasons to avoid exposing a human person to a dangerous radioactive area.
The creation of haptics correspond to the integration of the computing technology in a master-slave control loop, which was until then only realized via direct mechanical links. Those haptic devices are often called master arms with force feedback, and allow the operator to feel remotely all sensations of contact, primary information to perform the task he is asked to.
Indeed, in the nuclear field, force feedback is not a luxury but has become a necessity. Both because of the dangerousness of the elements involved as well as the risks associated to their manipulation, each step of the process must be thoroughly and perfectly controlled. The environment being distant and inaccessible, it is necessary to provide the human with as many information as possible: vision, of course, but also force feedback, to help him understand its location in space in order to perform the task with much more ease.
Several years of research and experiments were needed before succeeding into creating professional haptic devices that could be used on the field: the Haption technologies, with haptic devices specifically for nuclear needs.
Our haptic interfaces have now proven their value and are used in an operational way for decommissioning, dismantling and maintenance operations. They sum up several thousand hours of use and keep counting, which proves their reliability and robustness on the daily.
Our solutions in simulation are also widely used by our customers. Our CAD plugins (Catia, Delmia, Solidworks, Tecnomatix Process Simulate) can help in support to virtually control the robot and simulate the interventions upstream of the project.
We are available for your requests regarding the use of our master arms in the nuclear field.
