Charles R. Weisbin

Many technologies of interest to the Department of Energy (DOE) require hazardous operations in which intelligent machines could be used to advantage. Closest to home is the handling of radioactive material around reactors and processing plants, but similar problems arise with explosives and other hazardous chemicals. Underground mining puts humans at risk on a large scale, and underwater operations from exploration to maintenance of equipment and, eventually, to seabed mining have a similar potential. In fact, underwater robots have already been put to use (for example, Jason Jr. for surveillance of the remains of the sunken Titunic). At a minimum, such a machine should be able to perform a useful task (lift something, cut something, observe something) and move between some staging point and the location of the task.