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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Self-balancing, long reach robotic arm

Vital accelerator components are difficult to inspect and troubleshoot when they fail. Theuse of a self-balancing, long articulating robot simplifies the identification and troubleshootingof broken components in the narrow places of the beamline by pinpointing the location of theseerrors due to its ability to maneuver through these limited spaces. The design of the long reachrobot is the second iteration of a previous model accomplished by interns Amanda Hoeksemaand Brenda Sanchez. This new robot was redesigned with a greater focus on safety and structural integrity by removing 3D-printed parts in load-bearing positions and switching to off-the-shelf components with manufacturer-specified capabilities. These changes ensure that the new robotic arm and counterbalance designs conform closer to safety regulations by not depending on the vague durability of 3D-printed parts. This design change necessitated new calculations for the arm and counterweight to ensure the robot will function as intended.

Hoeksema, Amanda↗
DOE OSTI2022

Single site robotic device and related systems and methods

Disclosed herein are various medical device components, including components that can be incorporated into robotic and/or in vivo medical devices. Also disclosed are various medical devices for in vivo medical procedures. Included herein, for example, is a surgical robotic device having an elongate device body, a right robotic arm coupled to a right shoulder assembly, and a left robotic arm coupled to a left shoulder assembly.

Mondry, Jack↗
DOE OSTI2023

Single site robotic device and related systems and methods

Disclosed herein are various medical device components, including components that can be incorporated into robotic and/or in vivo medical devices. Also disclosed are various medical devices for in vivo medical procedures. Included herein, for example, is a surgical robotic device having an elongate device body, a right robotic arm coupled to a right shoulder assembly, and a left robotic arm coupled to a left shoulder assembly.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2026

Modular Accelerator Robotics Framework Implementation For Accelerator Inspection

Accelerator tunnels, such as the ones at Fermilab, remain highly radioactive after beam shutoff due to induced radiation from the beam. This residual radiation creates a hazardous environment for manual inspection and repair of beamline components. To minimize worker radiation dose and reduce beam downtime, the AD Robotics Initiative previously built a fleet of low-cost custom mobile robots. However, the custom Python sockets server-client architecture lacked standardization, causing development delays and complicating the integration of new sensors and actuators. Here, we developed a modular system using ROS2 and Docker to standardize the teleoperation and control interfaces. This system was validated by implementing a teleoperation controller with real-time, low-latency, and high-definition video feedback. The aim of this framework is for a new feature or even a robot to be integrated into the system simply by documenting the hardware configuration. Current integration of LiDAR, Odometry, and Depth Cameras provides the foundation for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) tasks. Finally, future work involves integration into the accelerator control system and the attachment of a 6 degree-of-freedom robotic arm for telemanipulation.

Rayyan Khana, M. [Unlisted, US, IL] (ORCID:0009000↗
DOE OSTI2024

Design of robot grippers for binder jet products handling

Dimension accuracy, damage minimization, and defect detection are essential in manufacturing processes, especially additive manufacturing. These types of challenges may arise either during the manufacture of a product or its use. The repeatability of the process is vital in additive manufacturing systems. However, human users may lose concentration and, thus, would be a great alternative as an assistant. Depending on the nature of work, a robot’s fingers might vary, for example, mechanical, electrical, vacuum, two-fingers, and three-fingers. In addition, the end effector plays a vital role in picking up an object in the advanced manufacturing process. However, inbuilt robotic fingers may not be appropriate in different production environments. In this research presented here considering metal binder jet additive manufacturing, the two-finger end- effectors are proposed design, analysis, and experiment to pick up an object after completing the production process from a specific location. The final designs were further printed by using a 3D metal printer and installed in the existing robotic systems. These new designs are used successfully to hold the object from the specific location by reducing the contact force that was not possible with the previously installed end effector's finger. In addition, a numerical study was conducted in order to compare the flowability of the geometric shape of finger's free areas.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Case studies of robots and automation as health/safety interventions in small manufacturing enterprises

This article reviews the experiences of 63 case studies of small businesses (<250 employees) with manufacturing automation equipment acquired through a health/safety intervention grant program. The review scope included equipment technologies classified as industrial robots (n = 17), computer numerical control (CNC) machining (n = 29), or other programmable automation systems (n = 17). Descriptions of workers' compensation (WC) claim injuries and identified risk factors that motivated the acquisition of the equipment were extracted from grant applications. Other aspects of the employer experiences, including qualitative and quantitative assessment of effects on risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), effects on productivity, and employee acceptance of the intervention were summarized from the case study reports. Case studies associated with a combination of large reduction in risk factors, lower cost per affected employee, and reported increases in productivity were CNC stone cutting system, CNC/vertical machining system, automated system for bottling, CNC/routing system for plastics products manufacturing, and a CNC/Cutting system for vinyl/carpet. Six case studies of industrial robots reported quantitative reductions in MSD risk factors in these diverse manufacturing industries: snack foods; photographic film, paper, plate, and chemical; machine shops; leather goods and allied products; plastic products; and iron and steel forging. Furthermore, this review of health/safety intervention case studies indicates that advanced (programmable) manufacturing automation, including industrial robots, reduced workplace musculoskeletal risk factors, and improved process productivity in most cases.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Achieving Versatile Energy Efficiency With the WANDERER Biped Robot

Legged humanoid robots promise revolutionary mobility and effectiveness in environments built for humans. However, inefficient use of energy significantly limits their practical adoption. The humanoid biped walking anthropomorphic novelly-driven efficient robot for emergency response (WANDERER) achieves versatile, efficient mobility, and high endurance via novel drive-trains and passive joint mechanisms. Results of a test in which WANDERER walked for more than 4 h and covered 2.8 km on a treadmill, are presented. Results of laboratory experiments showing even more efficient walking are also presented and analyzed in this article. WANDERER's energetic performance and endurance are believed to exceed the prior literature in human-scale humanoid robots. This article describes WANDERER, the analytical methods and innovations that enable its design, and system-level energy efficiency results.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2026

Robotic automation of maintenance work in nuclear power plants a cross-sector survey and roadmap

Nuclear power plants face increasing cost pressures, workforce constraints (aging workforce and skilled labor shortages), and safety requirements that are accelerating interest in robotic systems for inspection and maintenance. We conducted semi-structured interviews with personnel from seven U.S. nuclear utilities and compared deployment models, operational use cases, and integration practices with those reported by participants in the oil, gas, and petrochemical sector. In nuclear plants, robotic use remains concentrated in inspection—particularly indoor unmanned aerial vehicles and submersible remotely operated vehicles—with limited application to physical maintenance tasks. Reported near-term value includes reduced radiological and industrial risk, reduced outage labor, and improved data for planning and condition assessment. Key barriers include integration and data-interoperability constraints, operator qualification requirements, cybersecurity review burden, and difficulty demonstrating reliability in plant-representative environments. Cross-sector benchmarking highlights organizational and deployment practices that may help nuclear plants scale from pilots to routine use. We propose a deployment-oriented roadmap emphasizing modular payload strategies, representative qualification pathways and testing environments, and improved data governance to support safe and economically justified expansion of robotics in operating nuclear power plants.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Sim2Real Autonomous Robotic Exploration [Poster]

Autonomous robots offer promising solutions for exploration in environments that are inaccessible or hazardous to humans. Despite this, physical training of such robots is often constrained by safety risks, high cost or limited accessibility. This project presents an end-to-end simulation to reality pipeline leveraging Nvidia Isaac Sim and Boston Dynamics' Spot to enable autonomous navigation in indoor environments. A reinforcement learning policy is first trained using Nvidia Isaac Lab to establish Spot's locomotion pattern. Virtual LiDAR sensors are then integrated to perform SLAM-based navigation using simulated odometry. Finally, the simulated navigation scheme is transferred to a physical Spot robot to inspect and record images of a real-world room by repeating the learnt trajectory. The proposed framework highlights the potential of scalable training in simulation and reliable deployment in physical environments. Future directions include dynamic trajectory generation in unseen and challenging environments and integration of environmental sensing like temperature, radiation or humidity via sensor and material simulation.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Development of a Multi-Robot System for Autonomous Inspection of Nuclear Waste Tank Pits

This paper introduces the overall design plan, development timeline, and preliminary progress of the Autonomous Pit Exploration System project. This project aims to develop an advanced multi-robot system for the efficient inspection of nuclear waste-storage tank pits. The project is structured into three phases: Phase 1 involves data collection and interface definition in collaboration with Hanford Site experts and university partners, focusing on tank riser geometry and hardware solutions. Phase 2 includes the selection of sensors and robot components, detailed mechanical design, and prototyping. Phase 3 integrates all components into a cohesive system managed by a master control package which also incorporates digital twin and surrogate models, and culminates in comprehensive testing and validation at a simulated tank pit at the Idaho National Laboratory. Additionally, the system’s communication design ensures coordinated operation through shared data, power, and control signals. For transportation and deployment, an electric vehicle (EV) is chosen to support the system for a full 10 h shift with better regulatory compliance for field deployment. A telescopic arm design is selected for its simple configuration and superior reach capability and controllability. Preliminary testing utilizes an educational robot to demonstrate the feasibility of splitting computational tasks between edge and cloud computers. Successful simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) tasks validate our distributed computing approach. More design considerations are also discussed, including radiation hardness assurance, SLAM performance, software transferability, and digital twinning strategies.

Nuclear waste management↗
DOE OSTI2022

Industrialized and Robotic Construction Advances in Terrestrial Construction and Opportunities in Space Construction

Advanced Building Construction (ABC) methods such as industrialized prefabrication and robotically controlled additive deposition are becoming promising technologies to support rapid construction of buildings at volume and scale. However, apart from the structural shell of the building, optimal integration of other systems – mechanical, electrical, plumbing, thermal, power generation, storage and distribution, is key to enabling functional buildings. Leveraging ABC methods to integrate such systems in the buildings requires the building design to be optimized for constructability constraints imposed by the industrialized and robotically controlled production setups entailing such ABC methods. The Industrialized Construction Innovation (ICI) team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has been focusing on research and development of such ABC technologies and processes that can lead to production of buildings which are resilient to extreme climatic conditions at reduced cost and time. There is a potential synergy between such advancements in terrestrial construction, which can be leveraged for the benefit of space (orbital and extra-terrestrial) construction. Similarly, advances in space construction can lend itself to accelerated adoption of robotic construction methods in terrestrial construction. This presentation will give an overview of selective research efforts of the ICI team at NREL, along with a vision for potential collaborations with agencies like NASA.

3D printing↗
DOE OSTI2022

Robotic four-dimensional pixel assembly of van der Waals solids

Van der Waals (vdW) solids can be engineered with atomically precise vertical composition through the assembly of layered two-dimensional materials. However, the artisanal assembly of structures from micromechanically exfoliated flakes is not compatible with scalable and rapid manufacturing. Further engineering of vdW solids requires precisely designed and controlled composition over all three spatial dimensions and interlayer rotation. Here, we report a robotic four-dimensional pixel assembly method for manufacturing vdW solids with unprecedented speed, deliberate design, large area and angle control. We used the robotic assembly of prepatterned 'pixels' made from atomically thin two-dimensional components. Wafer-scale two-dimensional material films were grown, patterned through a clean, contact-free process and assembled using engineered adhesive stamps actuated by a high-vacuum robot. We fabricated vdW solids with up to 80 individual layers, consisting of 100 x 100 μm 2 areas with predesigned patterned shapes, laterally/vertically programmed composition and controlled interlayer angle. This enabled efficient optical spectroscopic assays of the vdW solids, revealing new excitonic and absorbance layer dependencies in MoS 2 . Furthermore, we fabricated twisted $N$-layer assemblies, where we observed atomic reconstruction of twisted four-layer WS 2 at high interlayer twist angles of >= 4°. In conclusion, our method enables the rapid manufacturing of atomically resolved quantum materials, which could help realize the full potential of vdW heterostructures as a platform for novel physics and advanced electronic technologies.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Lab-Scale Cable-Driven Parallel Robot Prototype for Automated Prefabricated Component Manipulation

This paper presents the design and evaluation of a lab-scale cable-driven parallel robot (CDPR) developed as a flexible platform for automated installation of prefabricated components onto exterior building envelopes. Traditional manual installation methods for prefabricated components, which depend on scaffolding, cranes, cherry pickers, and verbal coordination, are not only labor-intensive and error-prone but also face significant limitations in dense urban environments due to site access constraints. To address these challenges, we developed a lab-scale CDPR platform capable of autonomously transporting building envelope components from a designated pickup zone to their target installation location, minimizing the need for human intervention. This study describes the system’s mechanical design, actuation architecture, real-time feedback system, and control strategy of the CDPR, and evaluates its performance in a laboratory environment. The robot’s actuation system uses torque control for end-effector manipulation. The robot’s real-time pose feedback comes from a construction-grade total station and a wireless inertial measurement unit (IMU), which together support precise end-effector control. Experimental results demonstrate the successful integration of the hardware, sensing, state estimation, and control subsystems. Preliminary tests showed that our lab-scale prototype can position the end effector with an error of less than 3 mm, which is a level of precision not previously achieved by existing CDPRs in construction applications. The key findings are twofold: (1) torque-only control is necessary but not sufficient for minimizing final pose error, and (2) incorporating real-time pose feedback can achieve the desired placement accuracy.

Liu, Yifang [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL),↗
DOE OSTI2021

The FRAM robotic telescope for atmospheric monitoring at the Pierre Auger Observatory

FRAM (F/Photometric Robotic Atmospheric Monitor) is a robotic telescope operated at the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina for the purposes of atmospheric monitoring using stellar photometry. As a passive system which does not produce any light that could interfere with the observations of the fluorescence telescopes of the observatory, it complements the active monitoring systems that use lasers. We discuss the applications of stellar photometry for atmospheric monitoring at optical observatories in general and the particular modes of operation employed by the Auger FRAM. We describe in detail the technical aspects of FRAM, the hardware and software requirements for a successful operation of a robotic telescope for such a purpose and their implementation within the FRAM system.

Optics↗
DOE OSTI2026

Design and Integration of a Compact Mobile Outdoor Soil Sampling Agricultural Robot

The lack of feedback on soil management for crop systems necessitates the collection of soil samples to derive insights into prevailing soil conditions. Achieving an accurate model of these plantations requires a substantial number of soil samples, which is a labor-intensive process that can suffer from inconsistencies in both the methodology of collection and the locations from which samples are gathered. In addition, the close spacing of crop rows constrains the maneuverability of mobile agricultural equipment during sample collection. This article proposes the use of agricultural robotics to facilitate the acquisition of composite soil samples with minimal human intervention, allowing for precise data collection for a Populus plant system. More specifically, this article presents a case study on the design and construction of a compact agricultural robot for soil sample collection. The performance of the robot, including its soil collection efficacy, maneuverability, and positional accuracy, is evaluated.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Development of a Web-Based Graphical User Interface for Fermilab Robots

This project provides the students/faculty team with the unique opportunity to work with several robots. Additionally, the student team will be able to learn from the experience of the Robotics Initiative members who have a wide variety of technical backgrounds outside of software development. Working with an interdisciplinary group to solve a complex problem that is unique to our facility, is a valuable experience that the lab can provide. This project aligns with the ACORN projects R&D efforts regarding the integration of robotics status/control with the accelerator control system.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Dynamic Modeling, Trajectory Optimization, and Linear Control of Cable-Driven Parallel Robots for Automated Panelized Building Retrofits

The construction industry faces a growing need for automation to reduce costs, improve accuracy and productivity, and address labor shortages. One area that stands to benefit significantly from automation is panelized prefabricated building envelope retrofits, which can improve a building’s energy efficiency in heating and cooling interior spaces. In this paper, we propose using cable-driven parallel robots (CDPRs), which can effectively lift and handle large objects, to install these panels. However, implementing CDPRs presents significant challenges because of their nonlinear dynamics, complex trajectory planning, and precise control requirements. To tackle these challenges, this work focuses on a new application of established control and trajectory optimization theories in a CDPR simulation of a building envelope retrofit under real-world conditions. We first model the dynamics of CDPRs, highlighting the critical role of damping in system behavior. Building on this dynamic model, we formulate a trajectory optimization problem to generate feasible and efficient motion plans for the robot under operational and environmental constraints. Given the high precision required in the construction industry, accurately tracking the optimized trajectory is essential. However, challenges such as partial observability and external vibrations complicate this task. To address these issues, a Linear Quadratic Gaussian control framework is applied, enabling the robot to track the optimized trajectories with precision. Simulation results show that the proposed controller enables precise end effector positioning with errors under 4 mm, even in the presence of external wind disturbances. Through comprehensive simulations, our approach allows for an in-depth exploration of the system’s nonlinear dynamics, trajectory optimization, and control strategies under controlled yet highly realistic conditions. The results demonstrate the feasibility of CDPRs for automating panel installation and provide insights into their practical deployment.

CDPR↗