Fusion Power has the potential to solve one of society's greatest challenges: universal access to plentiful, safe & sustainable energy. A person's entire lifetime energy needs can be supplied from fusion energy using the deuterium taken from a domestic bath of water and the tritium that can be bred from the lithium in a single mobile phone battery. Fusion power plants cannot suffer any type of runaway and they do not produce any direct greenhouse gas emissions. However achieving fusion is technically challenging: it requires heating the deuterium & tritium fuel to millions of degrees. At this temperature, the fuel becomes a plasma - a gas of charged particles. The plasma must be confined for sufficient time at sufficient density in order to get more energy out than we put energy in. There are a number of approaches being explored but the most successful are (1) magnetic confinement fusion which holds the fuel by magnetic fields at relatively low density for relatively long times in a chamber called a tokamak, and (2) inertial confinement fusion which holds the fuel for a very short time but at huge densities. The exciting news is that fusion is now entering a golden era. Since 2020, there have been substantial scientific breakthroughs, such as at JET in the UK and at NIF in the US. There has been dramatic expansion into the private sector with over 30 companies globally pursuing a range of approaches and many more establishing the fusion supply chain; governments around the world, but especially in the UK, are investing to accelerate fusion delivery. A remaining critical barrier to making fusion a reality is the shortage of people who understand the inter-related operational constraints for both the plasma fuel and its containment materials, including the breeding of tritium from lithium, all of which must be satisfied simultaneously. The EPSRC CDT in Fusion Power will build on our existing success and international reputation to become the global beacon for training the next generation of fusion leaders. At the core of our CDT is the partnership between six leading research-intensive universities and more than 20 private companies, UK & international labs and government agencies. Our students will benefit from a systems-thinking-based technical training in plasma physics and materials science including tritium breeding & handling. They will benefit from training delivered by non-academic partners in topics such as regulation & licensing, commercialisation & entrepreneurship, sustainability, financing & investment and project management. Through the CDT partners, the students will use internationally leading experimental facilities and high performance supercomputers. Initially through their supervisors and then increasingly independently, students will access international networks of institutions and fusion professionals. During their PhD, students will have the opportunity to build their track record through presenting work at conferences and leading their own "collaboratory" mini project. These scientists and engineers will go on to solve the technical cross-disciplinary challenges, moving fusion forward faster at a rate of more than 20 scientists & engineers per year. We will increase diversity in the fusion community through: positive recruitment & admissions practices; supportive, cohort-based training activities; undergraduate fusion internships for students from under-represented groups; outreach to the public and via sustained relationships with target schools. This supply of the best people will energise the UK fusion industry and enable a global ambition for fusion power plant innovation & development.

The nuclear industry has some of the most extreme environments in the world, with radiation levels and other hazards frequently restricting human access to facilities. Even when human entry is possible, the risks can be significant and very low levels of productivity. To date, robotic systems have had limited impact on the nuclear industry, but it is clear that they offer considerable opportunities for improved productivity and significantly reduced human risk. The nuclear industry has a vast array of highly complex and diverse challenges that span the entire industry: decommissioning and waste management, Plant Life Extension (PLEX), Nuclear New Build (NNB), small modular reactors (SMRs) and fusion. Whilst the challenges across the nuclear industry are varied, they share many similarities that relate to the extreme conditions that are present. Vitally these similarities also translate across into other environments, such as space, oil and gas and mining, all of which, for example, have challenges associated with radiation (high energy cosmic rays in space and the presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in mining and oil and gas). Major hazards associated with the nuclear industry include radiation; storage media (for example water, air, vacuum); lack of utilities (such as lighting, power or communications); restricted access; unstructured environments. These hazards mean that some challenges are currently intractable in the absence of solutions that will rely on future capabilities in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (RAI). Reliable robotic systems are not just essential for future operations in the nuclear industry, but they also offer the potential to transform the industry globally. In decommissioning, robots will be required to characterise facilities (e.g. map dose rates, generate topographical maps and identify materials), inspect vessels and infrastructure, move, manipulate, cut, sort and segregate waste and assist operations staff. To support the life extension of existing nuclear power plants, robotic systems will be required to inspect and assess the integrity and condition of equipment and facilities and might even be used to implement urgent repairs in hard to reach areas of the plant. Similar systems will be required in NNB, fusion reactors and SMRs. Furthermore, it is essential that past mistakes in the design of nuclear facilities, which makes the deployment of robotic systems highly challenging, do not perpetuate into future builds. Even newly constructed facilities such as CERN, which now has many areas that are inaccessible to humans because of high radioactive dose rates, has been designed for human, rather than robotic intervention. Another major challenge that RAIN will grapple with is the use of digital technologies within the nuclear sector. Virtual and Augmented Reality, AI and machine learning have arrived but the nuclear sector is poorly positioned to understand and use these rapidly emerging technologies. RAIN will deliver the necessary step changes in fundamental robotics science and establish the pathways to impact that will enable the creation of a research and innovation ecosystem with the capability to lead the world in nuclear robotics. While our centre of gravity is around nuclear we have a keen focus on applications and exploitation in a much wider range of challenging environments.

One of the most pressing problems facing society today is the management of existing and future waste forms arising from nuclear energy production. Here, the redox chemistry of the actinide elements plays a crucial role in many aspects of nuclear fission including safe disposal strategies and new recovery and recycling routes. Understanding the chemistry of actinides in engineered environments is imperative for the management of existing and future fission products (nuclear waste) arising from nuclear power production, particularly for underground geological disposal. In particular, the redox chemistry of neptunium, a key radionuclide found in appreciable quantities in high level waste is complex, changeable and currently not well understood. Over the lifespan of the proposed geological disposal facility, one of the principal hazards is a change in chemistry of neptunium that may result in leaching from the repository, breaching primary containment and entering the engineered environment. Due to the particular complex redox and chemical speciation of neptunium, crucial mechanistic information on redox chemistry and speciation that affects its interactions with engineered and natural encapsulating materials including the host rock and backfill material is lacking and remains one of the principal chemical challenges facing this field. In this feasibility study, we will address the prospect of using one and two photon fluorescence and phosphorescence spectroscopy and microscopy as a non-destructive technique to address this problem. We aim to visualise, locate and spatially map the different oxidation states of neptunyl that can co-exist in solution in model conditions using well defined complexes and aqua ions in with the ubiquitous geologically relevant minerals silica, alumina and calcite at previously unseen levels of detail (sub micrometer resolution). We have recently demonstrated that neptunyl(V) and (VI) emission occurs in the green and blue regions of the electromagnetic spectrum and are equally as intense as the uranyl(VI) ion, whose optical properties are well known and have been used by us for fluorescence and phosphorescence microscopy imaging. This means that both oxidation states can be detected simultaneously so that highly sensitive, informative three-dimensional imaging can be used to understand neptunyl geochemistry below the micron scale. This will add much needed important information to the safety case for nuclear waste disposal in a range of heterogeneous systems.

The vision for this Programme is to deliver the step changes in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) capability that are necessary to overcome crucial challenges facing the nuclear industry in the coming decades. The RAS challenges faced in the nuclear industry are extremely demanding and complex. Many nuclear installations, particularly the legacy facilities, present highly unstructured and uncertain environments. Additionally, these "high consequence" environments may contain radiological, chemical, thermal and other hazards. To minimise risks of contamination and radiological shine paths, many nuclear facilities have very small access ports (150 mm - 250 mm diameter), which prevent large robotic systems being deployed. Smaller robots have inherent limitations with power, sensing, communications and processing power, which remain unsolved. Thick concrete walls mean that communication bandwidths may be severely limited, necessitating increased levels of autonomy. Grasping and manipulation challenges, and the associated computer vision and perception challenges are profound; a huge variety of legacy waste materials must be sorted, segregated, and often also disrupted (cut or sheared). Some materials, such as plastic sheeting, contaminated suits/gloves/respirators, ropes, chains can be deformed and often present as chaotic self-occluding piles. Even known rigid objects (e.g. fuel rod casings) may present as partially visible or fragmented. Trivial tasks are complicated by the fact that the material properties of the waste, the dose rates and the layout of the facility within which the waste is stored may all be uncertain. It is therefore vital that any robotic solution be capable of robustly responding to uncertainties. The problems are compounded further by contamination risks, which typically mean that once deployed, human interaction with the robot will be limited at best, autonomy and fault tolerance are therefore important. The need for RAS in the nuclear industry is spread across the entire fuel cycle: reactor operations; new build reactors; decommissioning and waste storage and this Programme will address generic problems across all these areas. It is anticipated that the research will have a significant impact on many other areas of robotics: space, sub-sea, mining, bomb-disposal and health care, for example and cross sector initiatives will be pursued to ensure that there is a two-way transfer of knowledge and technology between these sectors, which have many challenges in common with the nuclear industry. The work will build on the robotics and nuclear engineering expertise available within the three academic organisations, who are each involved in cutting-edge, internationally leading research in relevant areas. This expertise will be complemented by the industrial and technology transfer experience and expertise of the National Nuclear Laboratory who have a proven track record of successfully delivering innovation in to the nuclear industry. The partners in the Programme will work jointly to develop new RAS related technologies (hardware and software), with delivery of nuclear focused demonstrators that will illustrate the successful outcomes of the Programme. Thus we will provide the nuclear supply chain and end-users with the confidence to apply RAS in the nuclear sector. To develop RAS technology that is suitable for the nuclear industry, it is essential that the partners work closely with the nuclear supply chain. To achieve this, the Programme will be based in west Cumbria, the centre of much of the UK's nuclear industry. Working with researchers at the home campuses of the academic institutions, the Programme will create a clear pipeline that propels early stage research from TRL 1 through to industrially relevant technology at TRL 3/4. Utilising the established mechanisms already available in west Cumbria, this technology can then be taken through to TRL 9 and commercial deployment.

The inspection of safety-critical components in the nuclear power industry depends on procedures that can detect defects to a given threshold of severity; the acceptance process for this is known as inspection qualification. Inspection qualification in the UK is a highly developed formal activity, and is representative of the best practice in the world. However it can be very conservative if there is uncertainty in the expected measured response. A vital example is the scattering of ultrasound from the tips of rough cracks, such as thermal fatigue cracks or stress corrosion cracks. Ultrasound scattering from crack tips is widely exploited to measure crack sizes, but while the nature of the scattering is well understood for smooth cracks, scattering from the tips of rough cracks can differ significantly, and is not readily predictable. Consequently the qualification of ultrasound inspections for rough cracks has to be subject to severely conservative assumptions, and even so there remains a risk of misinterpreting findings. This project aims to bring understanding to the nature of the scattering, and to develop predictive modelling tools, such that these conservative assumptions can be safely eroded and the reliability of inspections improved. This will enable industry to reduce the costs of manufacturing and repairing, and down-time from outages, as well as improving confidence in the safe operation of safety-critical plant. The project will build on a strong UK heritage of the knowledge of ultrasound scattering, including recent work by the proposers on the stochastic nature of wave reflections from rough surfaces. The key aim is to deliver a new analytical approach that will predict the statistically expected scattering from the tips of cracks of given characteristics of roughness. The work will also include experimental investigation of real cracks and numerical modelling studies. The new ideas will be applied to the primary ultrasound inspection techniques of Time-of-Flight-Diffraction, Pulse-Echo, and array imaging. The work will be undertaken as a collaboration between researchers in Mechanical Engineering and in Mathematics at Imperial College. The proposal is being submitted within the UK Research Centre in NDE (RCNDE) to its targeted research programme. The proposal has been reviewed internally by the RCNDE, approved by the RCNDE board, and supported financially by five RCNDE industrial members.