Nuclear industry shares experience in robotics innovation

Health Innovation North West Coast’s business development and digital teams recently visited RAICo (Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Collaboration) in Whitehaven, Cumbria to learn about the UK nuclear industry’s development of robotic technology to meet needs for the a wide range of nuclear decommissioning sites (including the nearby Sellafield site) and fusion engineering projects.
 
The use of robots to carry out tasks in harmful environments, so people don’t have to, was one of the primary purposes for establishing RAICo, but to also ensure the nuclear decommissioning and fusion energy industries are keeping up with the pace of global advancements in robotics and AI and reaping the benefits.

Jenni West, Associate Director of Digital Transformation, said: “There is decades of robotics experience right on our doorstep from other industries and organisation like RAICo that the NHS can learn from. Throughout the day RAICo inspired us with ideas that we can ‘lift and shift’ into the health and care.”

The benefits to robotics innovation within the NHS could be: improving patient outcomes; driving efficiencies; achieving better value for money; and developing more sustainable models of care. 

A constant theme throughout the visit was ‘pull’ versus ‘push’ innovation.

Kirsty Hewitson, Director of RAICo said: “Knowledge transfer to adjacent publicly funded industries is an important part of our mandate at RAICo. We believe that it is essential to work with front-line staff to determine their robotic needs to complete complex tasks in challenging workspaces – instead of pushing a robotic solution on them. This of course is very relevant for the NHS environment as well.”

The RAICo team demonstrated a number of robotic tools that have been developed to solve real operational problems. Most of these were remote handling and transportation-type robotics and the facility was even equipped with a deep-water tank, to model a specific workspace at Sellafield.
 
RAICo is itself a collaboration between the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Sellafield Ltd, the University of Manchester and AWE Nuclear Security Technologies. Also demonstrating why partnership working is essential when innovating with emerging technology and making the most of taxpayer’s money.

Earlier this year, Health Innovation North West Coast convened a meeting in Preston with experts from health and care, industry, academia and local government to support the development, testing and adoption of robotic technologies. The outcome of that meeting was to establish a board that will oversee efforts to consolidate and make best use of resources.

Jenni added: "That meeting, combined with the visit to RAICo, means we have a range of experience, expertise and buy in from public sector, industry and academia to create a collaborative team that can tackle the integration of robotics, AI and autonomous systems into health and social care, allowing us to take advantage of the technologies whist looking to create economic growth and workforce opportunities across our region."

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Kayleigh Jackson and James Kell, CRADLE; Amanda Thornton and Tony Woods, Health Innovation North West Coast; Janet King, NHS England; Kirsty Hewitson, RAICo; Jenni West, Health Innovation North West Coast.