Energid develops robot for inspecting nuclear power plants

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

Energid Technologies Corp. of Cambridge said it has developed a next-generation robot prototype to inspect nuclear power plants as part of an agreement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. of Japan.

While the robots could be used in disaster situations such as the March earthquake and tsunami that damaged Japanese nuclear power plants, the new robot’s main mission would be to inspect a nuclear plant’s heat exchanger and steam tubing systems at a faster and more reliable rate than existing robots can perform today, said Neil Tardella, chief operating officer of Energid Technologies. (Financial details of the relationship between Energid and Mitsubishi are not being disclosed, he said.)

“Believe it or not, Mitsubishi officials were in our lab in Burlington when the earthquake hit,” he said.

Tardella said he thinks Mitsubishi chose Energid for this project for its work with NASA. One project the company is working on is the K10 Rover, a robot designed for space missions that will explore lunar and planetary surfaces.

The prototype that Energid has designed for Mitsubishi would inspect a nuclear plant’s steam-generator tubing. Because of potential radiation, “you want to minimize human interaction” and use robots instead, Tardella said. Nuclear power plants have to go off-line for such inspections, and existing robots are “slow and problematic,” he said.

“You want to do this job as fast as possible,” Tardella said, “because every moment a power plant is off-line is money lost.”

Mitsubishi customers include nuclear power plants, he added. (To read Energid’s press release, please click here.)

Following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, robots made by several other local companies were deployed in the disaster effort.

Robots designed for military purposes by iRobot Corp. of Bedford were dispatched to the scene. And British defense contractor Qinetiq Group PLC’s plant in Waltham provided robots to the Japanese government, ranging from lightweight surveillance machines to heavy construction vehicles. All are intended to allow workers to repair the reactors at a safe distance, Globe stories noted.