The deployment of drones in support of employee safety during nuclear facility decommissioning is underway in the U.K. Sellafield Ltd., a subsidiary of the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, confirms that drone pilots have successfully completed two flights in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, England.

The flights, which accessed a Sellafield building with limited space using a light detection and ranging (lidar) sensor and a radiation dosimeter, are helping improve the safety of employees during the decommissioning of the site’s legacy buildings. Sellafield has now become the first U.K. nuclear site to employ a drone equipped with a radiation monitor.

A Flyability Elios 3 drone equipped with a lidar sensor was able to successfully collect data from a site building. The data will be processed to produce a 3D model of the area, which will help inform engineering decisions. In a second launch, the drone was equipped with a radiation monitor to allow workers to assess radiation levels and identify potential hot spots in areas where radiation exposure levels are unknown.

To build confidence in the readings, researchers will test the drone in a controlled environment by exposing it to varying dose profiles, which will provide a better understanding of the radiometric performance of the combined system.