A robot dog equipped with a contamination swabbing tool has completed a successful trial.
Tested for the first time at the Sellafield nuclear site, the quadruped robot is designed to reduce human exposure to hazardous radioactive environments by taking over routine health physics tasks.
Sellafield Limited and the Robotics & AI Collaboration (RAICo) successfully completed the first trial, which focused on the robot’s ability to perform contamination swabbing in areas containing radioactive material.
The robot used a specially developed tool attached to a Spot quadruped robot for the test.
Deon Bulman, ROV Equipment Programme Lead from Sellafield's Remote Technologies Group, said: "Demonstrating a quadruped robot capable of remotely deploying swabbing equipment represents the significant opportunity we have to improve both safety and efficiency for nuclear decommissioning here at Sellafield.
"The quadruped’s agility and stability allow it to access areas that are hazardous for personnel, while intuitive haptic feedback provides precise, human-like manipulation, reducing task time and increasing confidence in the samples collected.
"Together, these capabilities support faster, safer, and more cost-effective decommissioning operations while pushing forward the adoption of advanced robotics in the nuclear sector."
Swabbing is a routine task at Sellafield, with the health physics team carrying out hundreds of swabs daily in contaminated areas.
Using circular paper filters, the swabs monitor radiation levels on various surfaces, providing essential data that shapes decommissioning plans and ensures regulatory compliance.
The tool was developed as part of the RAICo collaboration, which brings together the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), Sellafield Limited, the broader NDA nuclear estate, the University of Manchester, and AWE Nuclear Security Technologies.
Its design enables it to mimic the complex, non-linear swabbing motion performed by human workers.
This is achieved through a combination of a specially shaped attachment, an off-the-shelf haptic controller from Haply Robotics, and custom software developed by RAICo.
During the trial, the Spot robot was deployed into a restricted area to inspect a simulated radiological spill and collect a swab from a mock-contaminated surface.
It successfully gathered a sample of blue chalk, used to represent radioactive contamination in the demonstration.
The outcome suggests that swabbing—a task traditionally performed by humans—can potentially be completed remotely without compromising accuracy or safety.
Dr Kirsty Hewitson, director at RAICo, said: "This deployment is a perfect example of how collaboration between RAICo partners generates significant benefits for end users in the nuclear sector.
"In this case, innovation developed collaboratively by RAICo members, academic institutions, and companies in the UK supply chain, was trialled at another member’s site to support a specific task that their frontline operators have to deliver every day.
"By working as a single, integrated team, we are all avoiding duplication and together we are delivering greater value from the public investment of taxpayer money.
"Furthermore, the deployment at Sellafield follows a similar successful inactive test at the Joint European Torus (JET) facility in Culham earlier in 2025, suggesting that this new technology could have an impact on both nuclear decommissioning and fusion engineering sites."
The successful trial points to wider potential use of robotics across the nuclear estate, supporting efforts to minimise risk, improve operational efficiency, and maintain high safety standards as decommissioning progresses.
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