Month: September 2021

I’ve just listened to a Webinar “How to Implement Remote Inspection in the Nuclear Energy Sector?” organised by TUV SUD (I’m not sure about the question mark!).

It introduced the idea that one person could “walk the site” wearing smart glasses, while their colleagues watch from a remote location, request the walker stop to look at anything that catches their attention and ask questions through the walker. If accepted, this could complete an inspection with fewer on-site resources and will generate an audio-visual record of the inspection from which the report and conclusions can be written.

I’m not sure this is a particularly new concept; the nuclear industry, and probably others, use remote monitoring to support operators working in difficult areas where there is a balance between having all the skills and expertise to hand and minimising the size of entry teams. The use of smart glasses may be new and maybe adds another option to body worn cameras and infrastructure mounted cameras. The application to teams of off-site inspectors may be novel. The service offered seems to be the full sweep of technology, hardware and software, from the camera to the remote inspectors; with the lessons of experience and training offered as well. This may well be a unique service for the time being but barriers to entry are probably not high.

There were several questions to do with broadband signal, band width, data protection, cyber security and safety with the conclusion that this technique is well within current technical capabilities. It has been used maybe 10 -20 times in Europe and about 50 times in China.

This is an interesting concept and an area that is likely to develop in future. Why send a team of people to a remote site and then into an industrial or contaminated environment when you can send one person, or a robot?

The regulators would have to consider the qualifications and experience required of the on-site inspector, who would be much more than just a camera operator, and the conduct of any such inspection. The industry could consider if the technology has application in normal operations and accident response that adds to the capability already offered by site sensors, including cameras, and body worn cameras that they already use.

22/9/21

I attended the Emergency Services Show yesterday (7/9/21). As in the past this offers access to a large number of exhibitors and a range of short presentations.  I don’t plan my visit very well and just wondered up and down hoping to find all the interesting stalls. This meant I stopped and chatted to random people rather than worked down a list and that this review is therefore rather random.

Themes include vehicles and vehicle fittings, lights (lots of LEDs!), care for responders physical and mental wellbeing, cameras on drones, people, vehicles and poles, more drones with different capabilities, handheld devices to detect and measure threats, PPE & RPE and command and control systems, kit bags, ropes, pulleys etc.

There were several IT systems that allow you to integrate information feeds from cameras and other sensors dotted around the incident, radio messages from those on the ground and geographic knowledge. I didn’t take a close at these but now wish I’d spoken to someone about them. My concern (from a far!) with these is that they disrupt the information pyramid. You need a new team of people to sift through the information and identify what is important and what is changing. Having a sit-rep from the commander on the ground available to all to listen to when they wish is great, but how do you ensure that people are not still interpreting it as hot news long after it has been superseded? Having the reports of all the people on the ground, and all the videos, is also great but again come with a time cost if everybody stops to hear them. Will the remote Gold Commanders be tempted to take time to look at the video feeds and make their own situation analysis, by passing the Command structure on the ground? Is that always good, always bad or does it depend?

There were several immersive training environments, including VR sets and tents with scenes projected onto all the surfaces. These must be helpful in certain circumstances.

Handheld radiation monitors continue to develop with new crystal materials, larger crystals and, more importantly, much more on-board computing capability. Southern Scientific were showing CBRNe handhelds while kromek were showing a range of handheld and wearable gamma and neutron detectors with Bluetooth and USB comms, including some with the ability to identify isotopes. I find some of the claims a little hard to believe but these companies have happy customers whose expertise and judgement in these matters I’d place ahead of mine.

There are also a number of training tools that are realistic looking handhelds, such as those offered by Argon Electronics, that report injected exercise data rather than live readings. Obviously potentially useful.

It was interesting to talk to the people at the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) stand. This organisation tries to find innovations that can be exploited by the UK defence and security services and help with their development. They do this by a combination regional “innovation partners”, who provide advice to organisations and individuals about the potential merits of their ideas and how best to develop them and through more focussed “competitions” to cover identified needs. Funds are available for promising technologies at different stages of development and for the full range of company size. Their website has interesting case studies.

A car sized fire blanket from Fire Hosetech caught my attention. This is designed to manage lithium-ion battery fires which must be contained until they burn out. These reusable blankets can withstand temperatures up to 1,600 degC and reduce the spread of toxic fumes and contamination.

I also stopped to look at Fortress Distribution’s attempt to reduce the world’s usage of disposable shoe covers with plastic “Yuleys” which you step into and out of in a hands-free manner. Their design use seems to be for trades working indoors and out to prevent treading dirt inside but I wondered if they could replace single use shoe covers in contaminated areas. One issue being that they cover the sole of the shoe and the sides to a certain extent but not the top which I suspect is an idea killer. The other questions would include how much work was involved keeping them clean and how many reuses would be required to cover their own environmental costs?

Also worthy of a mention is the National Emergency Services Museum in Sheffield which showed a few of its vehicles. Got to be worth a visit if in the area.

The Emergency Services Show is well worth a visit by emergency planning and response professionals although it is not focussed on us. It gives an opportunity to see how the Emergency Services, with whom we work, are developing and an opportunity to keep an eye on technology developments and themes.