·   Press Release

ROBDEKON at the BMBF Innovation Forum: Fraunhofer IOSB and KIT showcase decontamination technologies

Visitors to the BMBF Innovation Forum »Civil Security« in Berlin on May 7 and 8 were able to experience an autonomous excavator, a milling robot for the dismantling of nuclear facilities and other state-of-the-art technologies. The excavator and milling robot are the result of the BMBF-funded ROBDEKON Competence Center for »Robotic Systems for Decontamination in Hazardous Environments«.

At the BMBF Innovation Forum, the ROBDEKON partners Fraunhofer IOSB and the Institute of Technology and Management in Construction at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT-TMB) presented their innovative solutions for the decontamination of landfills and contaminated sites and nuclear facilities. ROBDEKON has been receiving funding of around 20 million euros from the German government's »Research for Civil Security« program since 2018 and is currently in its second phase, in which the developed technologies are being tested in practice in close cooperation with users.

The autonomous excavator ALICE salvaging barrels. This is a previous demonstration in which the excavator was controlled from a distance of 50 meters. © Fraunhofer IOSB

In ROBDEKON, the Fraunhofer IOSB is working on the development of autonomous construction machines that can, for example, remove layers of soil autonomously. At the Innovation Forum, visitors were able to get their own impression of the maturity of the systems: with the support of an assistance system, the autonomous excavator ALICE was able to receive remote orders to recover potentially contaminated barrels. ALICE then recognized, grasped and loaded the barrels completely autonomously in Karlsruhe, 500 km away. »Especially now, during the ROBDEKON pilot phase, we are pleased to be able to show how well our technology already works,« says Janko Petereit, project manager at Fraunhofer IOSB and coordinator of ROBDEKON.

At the ROBDEKON booth at the BMBF Innovation Forum, Janko Petereit demonstrates how to interact with the autonomous excavator ALICE. The excavator can be observed on the monitors and the barrels can be selected. © Fraunhofer IOSB

The KIT-TMB presented a concrete milling machine that can be used to decontaminate surfaces in nuclear facilities. In addition, ROBDEKON is also developing solutions for further process steps that are necessary to automate the dismantling of such facilities as far as possible. These include the digital perception of the environment, release measurement and waste transportation.

This milling machine from KIT-TMB can be used to decontaminate the concrete walls of nuclear facilities. © Fraunhofer IOSB

Upcoming events at which ROBDEKON will be represented as an exhibitor:

  • Kerntechnik 2024, June 11–13, 2024 in Leipzig, with the robots Husky and GammaBot as well as a contamination array
  • Conference KI-basierte Robotik – KIRO 2024, June 18–19, 2024 in Berlin, presentation of teleoperation with excavator ALICE, talk with presentation of the ROBDEKON Competence Center by Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Jürgen Beyerer (Director of the Fraunhofer IOSB and spokesperson for ROBDEKON)

Information on the BMBF Innovation Forum »Civil Security«

At this year's BMBF Innovation Forum, around 500 participants from science and industry, from user groups of civil security solutions, authorities and organizations with security functions, as well as political decision-makers, exchanged ideas and networked under the motto »Together for a safe life in a resilient society« on the topic of civil security. Federal Research Minister Stark-Watzinger opened the Innovation Forum, which was organized by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). This was followed by twelve specialist sessions, spread over the two days of the event, in which current and future issues in civil security research were discussed, as well as a digital poster exhibition and an interactive project exhibition.

Information about ROBDEKON

ROBDEKON is a competence center funded by the BMBF since 2018 as part of the »Research for Civil Security« program and develops autonomous robotic systems that support humans in complex decontamination tasks. They can be used for the decontamination of nuclear facilities, the remediation of contaminated sites and landfills, and the safe recovery of hazardous substances. In the current second funding phase, the developed technologies are being tested and further developed in pilot projects in real-life environments.

Further information can be found on the ROBDEKON website at https://robdekon.de.