With new tricks and smarts, nimble Spot robots proving their worth across OPG

Earlier this year, OPG’s first Spot robot, deployed at Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (GS), celebrated its first birthday. In its first year, the four-legged helper completed several successful missions at both OPG’s Pickering and Darlington nuclear stations, including aiding a forced outage at Darlington’s Unit 2 and completing inspections in Pickering’s Unit 6 and Unit 1.

Combined, these tasks saved a significant amount of radiation exposure for employees and resulted in time saved and other efficiencies.

The robot has also acquired a number of new tricks over the year through additional features and functionality, including the use of an infrared camera to detect thermal anomalies, the addition of a manipulator arm, and radiation mapping and automated survey capabilities.

After observing Pickering’s success, Darlington’s Radiation Protection division procured the latest “Enterprise” Spot model this year.

In an OPG first, that robot recently disconnected a 600-volt breaker at Darlington using its manipulator arm, making the robot dog a circuit breaker expert and honorary member of the Maintenance Static Crew.

“While Spot performed the job flawlessly, this was only made possible due to thorough job preparation and planning from the maintainers, operators, and engineers behind it,” said Neil Mohan, Assistant Maintenance Manager at Darlington Nuclear GS.

OPG is now working with Boston Dynamics to create an in-house maintenance program to allow for efficient and rapid repairs on the company’s fleet of Spots. In a world-first, OPG employees successfully replaced a malfunctioning manipulator arm on one of the company’s Spots, the first time Boston Dynamics has had a customer perform one of these repairs.

Meanwhile, in OPG’s Renewable Generation division, employees at the Campbellford Work Centre are testing out their first Spot unit to see how it moves through a hydroelectric station environment.

Testing is also underway to gauge Spot’s teleoperations ability, so operators can remotely control it from hundreds of kilometres away. This would be especially useful as currently OPG employees drive far distances to conduct inspections and other tasks at unmanned hydro stations in the far reaches of the province.

The end goal is to eventually let several Spots loose to allow them to independently function at hydro sites and self-charge when needed. By conducting routine inspections and relaying important data back to operators, these machines could unlock several potential benefits.

“Implementing tech like Spot in Renewable Generation has the potential to significantly reduce the number of trips made to remote generating stations, and as a direct result reduce travel risks and lessen vehicle emissions. If routine inspections can be automated it would allow maintenance trades more time to focus on repairs and preventative maintenance,” said Ed Loghrin, Trades Management Supervisor in OPG’s Renewable Generation. “Our end goal is to determine if having a Spot-like robot implemented at remote stations across OPG makes sense, and if this technology can act as an effective set of eyes and ears at the stations when we can’t be there.”