PNNL part of new DOE robotics program for cleanup

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will be playing host to graduate students studying robotics in a new program to develop robotic technologies that could help with cleanup of Hanford’s most hazardous facilities.

The Department of Energy announced this week that it had selected Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., for a new five-year program to train graduate students in robotics that could help with DOE environmental cleanup programs. PNNL in Richland and Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina will be team members.

Students are expected to evaluate, design and build robotic equipment for the cleanup of DOE facilities that are too contaminated to allow people to perform hands-on work.

Better robotics could have applications at Hanford, including helping with cleanup of the PUREX processing plant complex or with work on underground tanks holding high-level radioactive waste.

This story was originally published March 17, 2016 at 9:02 PM with the headline "PNNL part of new DOE robotics program for cleanup."