Cincinnati – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today awarded a grant to the Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU) for “National Research Institute: Collaborative Research: Multi-Modal Characterization of Department of Energy—Environmental Management Facilities.” The cooperative agreement will focus on addressing the problem of exploring post-disaster nuclear sites by deploying small flying and roving robots. The research will focus on integrated sensing, modeling, and planning. The proposed research responds to the need for the robotic autonomous radiological, chemical, and thermal assessment of inaccessible facilities. For the proposed three-year program, an inter-disciplinary team consisting of experts in perception, motion planning, ground robots, micro aerial vehicles, and nuclear robotics has been selected. The value of the grant is $1,371,287 million with a 3 year project period. This cooperative agreement was competitively awarded under the National Science Foundation, National Robotics Initiative, Program Solicitation No. NSF 16-517.

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