Silicon Graphics Inc is providing visual computing systems to help repair the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that exploded in 1986. Since then the reactor at the Chernobyl Unit Four nuclear power plant has been encased in concrete, but now it is decaying and work has to be carried out to prevent further contamination. Scientists at the US Department of Energy, NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are working with Ukrainian scientists to build sophisticated robots to repair the damage. Silicon Graphics is supplying visual computing systems that will be connected to the robot, known as ‘Pioneer’. Feedback from Pioneer’s vision system and a radiological sensor suite will enable scientists to avoid human contact with the contaminated reactor. An SGI Octane workstation will be connected to the robot via a cable, which will then build virtual reality maps of the rooms situated inside the reactor. It has been calculated by US scientists working on the project that radiation levels of many of the rooms are so high that people would put their health at serious risk if they were to enter them. The Pioneer team will also use an SGI Onyx2 visualization supercomputer, so they can interact naturally with a photo-realistic view of Chernobyl, allowing the structural integrity of the building to be assessed. The Pioneer robot is radiation tolerant and will weigh 1,000 pounds, running on tank tracks. It will be mounted with a multi-camera mast, sensors, a bulldozer plough and a drill to penetrate the concrete. It will be operated by engineers in a lead lined room near the core of the reactor, and will control the robot so it can go into contaminated rooms to take images, measurements and structural samples of the room. The work has had to be carried out because rain is seeping through the concrete walls and draining radioactive material into ground water.
