Nuclear facilities require a wide variety of robotics capabilities, engendering a variety of extreme RAI challenges. NCNR brings together a diverse consortium of experts in robotics, AI, sensors, radiation and resilient embedded systems, to address these complex problems. In high gamma environments, human entries are not possible at all. In alpha-contaminated environments, air-fed suited human entries are possible, but engender significant secondary waste (contaminated suits), and reduced worker capability. We have a duty to eliminate the need for humans to enter such hazardous environments wherever technologically possible. Hence, nuclear robots will typically be remote from human controllers, creating significant opportunities for advanced telepresence. However, limited bandwidth and situational awareness demand increased intelligence and autonomous control capabilities on the robot, especially for performing complex manipulations. Shared control, where both human and AI collaboratively control the robot, will be critical because i) safety-critical environments demand a human in the loop, however ii) complex remote actions are too difficult for a human to perform reliably and efficiently. Before decommissioning can begin, and while it is progressing, characterization is needed. This can include 3D modelling of scenes, detection and recognition of objects and materials, as well as detection of contaminants, measurement of types and levels of radiation, and other sensing modalities such as thermal imaging. This will necessitate novel sensor design, advanced algorithms for robotic perception, and new kinds of robots to deploy sensors into hard-to-reach locations. To carry out remote interventions, both situational awareness for the remote human operator, and also guidance of autonomous/semi-autonomous robotic actions, will need to be informed by real-time multi-modal vision and sensing, including: real-time 3D modelling and semantic understanding of objects and scenes; active vision in dynamic scenes and vision-guided navigation and manipulation. The nuclear industry is high consequence, safety critical and conservative. It is therefore critically important to rigorously evaluate how well human operators can control remote technology to safely and efficiently perform the tasks that industry requires. All NCNR research will be driven by a set of industry-defined use-cases, WP1. Each use-case is linked to industry-defined testing environments and acceptance criteria for performance evaluation in WP11. WP2-9 deliver a variety of fundamental RAI research, including radiation resilient hardware, novel design of both robotics and radiation sensors, advanced vision and perception algorithms, mobility and navigation, grasping and manipulation, multi-modal telepresence and shared control. The project is based on modular design principles. WP10 develops standards for modularisation and module interfaces, which will be met by a diverse range of robotics, sensing and AI modules delivered by WPs2-9. WP10 will then integrate multiple modules onto a set of pre-commercial robot platforms, which will then be evaluated according to end-user acceptance criteria in WP11. WP12 is devoted to technology transfer, in collaboration with numerous industry partners and the Shield Investment Fund who specialise in venture capital investment in RAI technologies, taking novel ideas through to fully fledged commercial deployments. Shield have ring-fenced £10million capital to run alongside all NCNR Hub research, to fund spin-out companies and industrialisation of Hub IP. We have rich international involvement, including NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and Carnegie Melon National Robotics Engineering Center as collaborators in USA, and collaboration from Japan Atomic Energy Agency to help us carry out test-deployments of NCNR robots in the unique Fukushima mock-up testing facilities at the Naraha Remote Technology Development Center.

Discovery and development of advanced materials requires understanding and control of the relationship between composition, structure and function. In crystalline materials, there is considerable focus on a design process that is informed by a single macroscopic structure defined by the average crystallographic unit cell determined by Bragg diffraction. This is a powerful approach, but it has become increasingly apparent that local chemical and positional deviations from this long-range average view of the structure can have decisive effects even in crystalline systems. Charge stripes in the high temperature superconductors and the role of "panoscopic" order spanning meso- to nano-scopic length scales in thermoelectric performance are just two examples of the limitations of average structure considerations in explaining how an apparently small compositional change can transform functional behaviour. This in turn restricts the utility of such a view of structure in designing new materials with enhanced performance. This is particularly critical for the many functional materials in which modulation or switching of a ferroic order parameter (i.e., polarization or magnetization) by a stimulus such as an applied field produces the property (e.g., piezoelectricity or magnetoresistance) used in devices (e.g., actuators or data storage). Their properties are optimised by formation of solid solutions e.g., in PbZrO3-PbTiO3 (PZT), responsible for >90% of piezoelectric devices, the Zr/Ti ratio is adjusted to coincide with the boundary between rhombohedral and tetragonal symmetries, at which the piezoelectric charge coefficient maximizes. There is competition between the randomising effect of the local configuration of Zr and Ti cations (which occupy the same position in the average unit cell, but locally exert quite different influences on the displacements producing the polarisation) and the effect of the long-range dipolar and elastic interactions favouring the average polarisation direction. This local structure effect and the finite size correlations it produces exerts decisive control of function that is invisible from the average structure central to traditional design. The properties of the solid solutions are thus not an average of the end members, and simple design rules do not exist. The project team have recently shown how design based on quantitative local structure analysis can afford materials families with important properties that had not been accessed by classical average structure design approaches. Using nanoscale information from total Bragg scattering studies to control properties, they identified chemistry that would have been disregarded based on the average structure but led to a new lead-free piezoelectric family (Advanced Materials 2015) and then to the first bulk room temperature ferromagnetic ferroelectric multiferroic (Nature 2015): combination of these two long range orders in a single phase has been a longstanding scientific challenge. This project will develop the control of function by understanding and manipulating symmetry and structure beyond the unit cell length scale. We will build a toolkit that enables this approach by combining solid state materials chemistry, materials science and condensed matter physics to integrate synthesis, crystal chemistry, crystallography, local structure analysis, scanning probe microscopy, magnetism, electroceramic measurement physics, and materials processing. The toolkit exploits the synergies between the skills of the two participating groups. By designing then preparing new piezoelectric and multiferroic materials, we will demonstrate how this approach can guide synthesis for function, with ramifications for control of properties beyond the exemplar areas studied, for example in heterogeneous catalyst and electrode (fuel cell, battery) materials, contributing to the EPSRC Physical Sciences Grand Challenge of Nanoscale Design of Functional Materials.

This project will create novel fabrication approaches, using the freeze-casting method combined with slip- and tape-casting, to produce piezoelectric composites with microstructures tailored to yield piezoelectric properties that exceed the performance of off-the-shelf materials, whilst providing advantages over traditional manufacturing methods. The global market for piezoelectric ceramics was valued at $19.6 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow in the areas of energy harvesting, IoT-related sensors and piezoelectric composites in the next decade. Piezoelectric composites are critical to the UK's defence (SONAR), and public health (medical ultrasound) sectors, as well as being used widely in the transport and energy industries. Developing new methods for producing high performance piezoelectric composites represents a significant benefit in terms of materials cost and manufacture, as well as device performance, by enabling low-cost fabrication of bespoke piezoelectric materials with properties tuned depending on the desired application. Freeze casting is an effective method for controlling the microstructures of porous materials, whereby pores are templated on solvent crystals whose growth and morphology depends on temperature gradients and freezing behaviour during processing. These porous microstructures, e.g. porous piezoelectric ceramics, can then be infiltrated with polymer second phases to improve mechanical and electrical properties. The properties of piezoelectric composites depend strongly on local interactions between electric- and mechanical fields and the material structure over a range of length scales, from ferroelectric domains (sub-micron) through to macro-structure (on the order of millimetres) of the composites. In this project, the aim is to increase the understanding of these electromechanical field/material interactions in piezoelectric composites and design microstructures to exploit beneficial effects accordingly. This will be underpinned by developing advanced numerical models to both aid with microstructural/fabrication process design, and provide insight into experimental observations of the properties of materials fabricated during the project. The methods that will be investigated offer several advantages over current techniques used to produce commerically available piezoelectric composites. Firstly, the materials can be produced at near-net shape, reducing post-machining processes or manual fibre lay up common for macro-fibre composites fabricated by dice-/arrange-and-fill processes. Secondly, the level of control that is theoretically possible, although not yet realised, by utilising freezing processes to template microstructures, provides the potential to fabricate materials with bespoke properties tuned to specific applications, yielding an optimised combination of piezoelectric, dielectric and mechanical properties to promote enhanced electromechanical coupling between the active piezoelectric and the wider device. Thirdly, the reduced length scale of microstructural features introduced using freeze casting, compared to dice-and-fill composites for example, may provide a route to engineering the inherent properties of the piezoelectric ceramic matrix. Using water as a freezing agent means these processes have a low environmental impact, and near-net shape, optimised composite microstructures with comparable performance to dense piezoceramics will reduce the volume of raw material required in the first place.

Most electrical equipment requires a power supply which usually incorporates a magnetic transformer to provide safety isolation and to step up or step down the input voltage. Piezoelectric transformers (PTs) offer an exciting alternative to conventional transformers particularly in applications requiring high power density, low electromagnetic interference and high temperature operation. Their widespread adoption is hindered, however, by the need for power supply designers to possess knowledge and training in both materials science and power electronics, combined expertise that is rarely found in industry or even academia. This lacking knowledge base represents a real impediment for power supply manufacturers who may wish to adopt PT technology and consequently PTs have only seen marginal market penetration. The project addresses these issues by producing a multi-physics design framework which provides abstraction from the fundamental science and therefore allows the design engineer to focus on the overall system design. The framework converts a high-level power supply specification into a PT power supply solution through a series of circuit and materials based transformations. An optimisation process (using evolutionary computing and finite element analysis) produces a fully characterised final design. The output of this process includes a circuit design and a "recipe" for the piezoelectric transformer, including materials and construction details presented in a format suitable for manufacture. The framework will be encapsulated in a user-friendly software design tool and validated against real-world power supply applications suggested by the project's industrial partners thereby ensuring the relevance of the research. The research, which will transcend the traditional barriers between electrical engineering and materials science, has an investigatory team with expertise in both areas. As well as developing a framework, the research will develop novel piezoelectric materials particularly suited to high temperature operation, finding promise in a number of application areas including aerospace, oil/gas exploration, electric vehicles and for remote monitoring in harsh environments. Additionally, the need for environmentally damaging lead-based PTs will be diminished through the development of new materials which comply with Restriction on Hazardous Substances 2016. The research programme will culminate in an open workshop where industry and academic researchers can learn about PT power supplies and evaluate the design tool for themselves. To ensure that the research remains industrially relevant we have partnered with several leading companies who will provide expertise and commercial drive and in return they will receive proof-of-concept power supplies ready for commercialisation.

Ultrasonics, the science and technology of sound at frequencies above the audible range, has a huge range of applications in sensing and remote delivery of energy. In sensing, 20% of medical scans rely on ultrasonics for increasingly diverse procedures. Ultrasonics is pervasive in underwater sensing and communication and a key technology for non-destructive evaluation. Ultrasonic devices are essential components in every mobile phone and are being developed for enhanced biometric security. Ultrasound is also important in remote delivery of energy. In medical therapy, it is used to treat neural dysfunction and cancer. Many surgical tools are actuated with ultrasound. As the best way to clean surfaces and bond interconnects, ultrasound is pervasive in semiconductor and electronics fabrication; it is also being explored for power delivery to implants and to give a contactless sense of touch. Such a broad range of applications predicts an exciting future: new materials will emerge into applications; semiconductor circuits will deliver smaller, more convenient instrumentation systems; autonomy and robotics will call for better sensors; and data analysis will benefit from machine learning. To maintain competitive advantage in this dynamic and multidisciplinary topic, companies worldwide rely on ambitious, innovative engineers to provide their unique knowledge of ultrasonics. As a significant contribution to address this need, Medical & Industrial Ultrasonics at the University of Glasgow and the Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering at the University of Strathclyde will combine to form the Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Ultrasonic Engineering (FUSE), the largest academic ultrasonic engineering unit in the world. Working with more than 30 external organisations, from microcompanies to multinationals, this will, for the first time, enable systematic training of a new generation of leaders in ultrasonics research, engineering and product development. This training will take place in the world-class research environment provided by two of the UK's pre-eminent universities with its partners, creating a training and research powerhouse in ultrasonics that will attract the best students and put them at the global forefront of the field.