Issue link: https://htpgraphics.uberflip.com/i/1385717
Despite the many challenges facing us all over the last 12-months, RAIN has continued to make substantial progress with its research and delivery of first-of-a-kind technology demonstrations to the nuclear industry. Through digital means, as well as the occasional face-to-face visit, our researchers have continued to work together, creating new robotic systems with ever increasing capability. The long periods of lockdown and working from home have even delivered some surprising benefits to the programme. Most notably, we have been able to engage more frequently with a wider industry audience through our successful webinar series. Despite the general fatigue of zoom meetings, the webinars have been very well attended, and perhaps most importantly, resulted in several new research collaborations forming. Our work with end-users has progressed very positively and during the last year we have managed to deploy robotic vehicles to take measurements in active facilities operated by UKAEA, and we managed to take a Spot-mini robot to survey radiation dose rates around the Chernobyl power plant. RAIN has now deployed robotic systems into more than ten active facilities in the UK, Europe and Japan, which is a fantastic achievement, but we clearly need to do much more if we are to achieve one of our major aims of making the use of robotic systems in the nuclear industry commonplace. With the strong interest that end-users now have for robotic solutions, RAIN has established more than 50 follow-on projects with industry, which has resulted in several commercial products. One such product is the CARMA radiation scanning robot that was highlighted in the UK Government's 2020 R&D Roadmap as world-leading technology. Finally, we were thrilled to hear that UKRI have approved substantial funding that will allow RAIN to continue for another 12-months. This will enable us to capitalise on the success we have already had in the nuclear industry, as well as extend some of our work into different industries. This is something that we have already had success with, with some of our robots now being explored for use in healthcare, agriculture and offshore. BARRY LENNOX 4 RAIN DIRECTOR