If you take the cosmic view of Sellafield, the superannuated nuclear facility in north-west England, its story began long before the Earth took shape. About 9bn years ago, tens of thousands of giant stars ran out of fuel, collapsed upon themselves, and then exploded. Flung out by such explosions, trillions of tonnes of uranium traversed the cold universe and wound up near our slowly materialising solar system. And here, over roughly 20m years, the uranium and other bits of space dust and debris cohered to form our planet in such a way that the violent tectonics of the young Earth pushed the uranium not towards its hot core but up into the folds of its crust. Within reach, so to speak, of the humans who eventually came along circa 300,000BC, and who mined the uranium beginning in the 1500s, learned about its radioactivity in 1896 and started feeding it into their nuclear reactors 70-odd years ago, making electricity that could be relayed to their houses to run toasters and light up Christmas trees. Sellafield compels this kind of gaze into the abyss of deep time because it is a place where multiple time spans – some fleeting, some cosmic – drift in and out of view. Laid out over six square kilometres, Sellafield is like a small town, with nearly a thousand buildings, its own roads and even a rail siding – all owned by the government, and requiring security clearance to visit. Sellafield's presence, at the end of a road on the Cumbrian coast, is almost hallucinatory. Then, having driven through a high-security gate, you're surrounded by towering chimneys, pipework, chugging cooling plants, everything dressed in steampunk. The sun bounces off metal everywhere. In some spots, the air shakes with the noise of machinery. It feels like the most manmade place in the world. Since it began operating in 1950, Sellafield has had different duties. First it manufactured plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Sellafield are seeking to innovate in the way they analyse Health, Safety and Environmental data to improve insight, trend analysis and early prediction of safety issues. The data which needs to be analysed includes safety observations, assurance activities, assurance action tracking information, accident reports and unsafe condition reports. Applications are invited for technological solutions to meet this challenge. The deadline for applications is Friday 24th January at 12 noon. Sellafield are exploring the use of Machine Learning (ML) to help analyse health, safety and environmental data to improve prediction of risk.

Delegates will be given further information on the nature of these challenges, constraints, and the solutions being sought. Applications will be invited, and an explanation of the Game Changers process given. Following the event, a physical non-active demonstrator will be created at the Robotics for Extreme Environments Laboratory to mimic the environment in which robots will need to be deployed. Successful applicants will be invited in early 2020 to demonstrate their robots. The solutions which demonstrate the greatest potential will be progressed through the Game Changers process with funding available to further develop their technology.

SOME PEOPLE fear about robots taking work far from human beings, however there are a pair of jobs that even these sceptics admit most folk would no longer favor. One is cleansing up radioactive slay, in particular when it's miles internal a nuclear vitality self-discipline--and in particular if the vitality self-discipline in quiz has suffered a recent accident. These that gain contend with radioactive arena topic must first don protective suits that are inherently cumbersome and are additional encumbered by the air hoses wanted to allow the wearer to breathe. Even then their working hours are strictly restricted, in relate to resolve far from prolonged exposure to radiation and because operating in the suits is intelligent. Moreover, some forms of slay are too dangerous for even the besuited to intention safely.

SOME PEOPLE fear about robots taking work far from human beings, however there are a pair of jobs that even these sceptics admit most folk would no longer favor. One is cleansing up radioactive slay, in particular when it's miles internal a nuclear vitality self-discipline--and in particular if the vitality self-discipline in quiz has suffered a recent accident. These that gain contend with radioactive arena topic must first don protective suits that are inherently cumbersome and are additional encumbered by the air hoses wanted to allow the wearer to breathe. Even then their working hours are strictly restricted, in relate to resolve far from prolonged exposure to radiation and because operating in the suits is intelligent. Moreover, some forms of slay are too dangerous for even the besuited to intention safely.

The Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield, Cumbria, has recycled its final batch of reactor fuel. But it leaves behind a hugely toxic legacy for future generations to deal with. So how will it be made safe? Thorp still looks almost new; a giant structure of cavernous halls, deep blue-tinged cooling ponds and giant lifting cranes, imposing in fresh yellow paint. But now the complex process of decontaminating and dismantling begins.

From Fukushima in Japan to Sellafield in the UK, the world is home to a number of sites that are contaminated with radioactive waste and require clean-up. The current techniques available to do this are expensive and time consuming – but a new'super hero' robot could help to cut both costs and time. The robot, called Avexis, is designed to fit through a 100mm access port in the flooded reactors at the Fukushima site, to locate and analyse melted fuel. Many areas around Fukushima are still being decontaminated, 58,000 people are still displaced from their homes and the local food industries have been crippled. Its designers hope that the robot will be ready to deploy at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant by February 2018.

Nimble-fingered robots that exactly mimic the movements of a human hand could soon be used to help decommission nuclear power stations. Remote-controlled robots with hand-like manipulators are used in many situations that are difficult or dangerous for humans, such as bomb disposal. However, their movements are typically controlled by human operators via joysticks, which limits their dexterity. To address this, Miika Perä and Hamid Reza Zaheri at London firm Cambrian Intelligence have built a system that lets robotic arms and hands emulate hand movements exactly. To guide the robot, a human carries out the desired actions either in front of a video camera or while wearing a glove that captures movement.