9 ms·
I think a problem that all the previous robots faced was the way that radiation interferes with the operation of any and all electronic devices.
by joe_the_user 2y ago
I think a problem that all the previous robots faced was the way that radiation interferes with the operation of any and all electronic devices.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoIs there a barrier to powering it with mechanical energy instead of electronic? Gas combustion and hydraulics instead of batteries, CPUs, and servomotors.
- pathartl 2y agoI wonder if there's an issue with exhaust and radiation, like not wanting irradiated gas to escape into the atmosphere more than it already is.
- patmorgan23 2y agoAnd control it how?
- andrewflnr 2y agoFiber optic endoscope for the view, and manual mechanical controls. A big fat umbilical does reduce the mobility options a bit, granted, but it sounds/looks like they're already resigned to something along those lines with their '“telesco-style” extendable pipe robot'.
- HPsquared 2y agoIf they don't care about going slow, they could reduce the wire count massively using a relay multiplexer. One input/output at a time.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoCamera broadcast and remote control vehicles existed before the invention of the microchip. You don't need a computer.
- gibolt 2y agoThe brains are the issue, not the power source. If you operators can't see what is happening/control it, or the onboard autonomous mode glitches, you're gonna have a bad day.
- HPsquared 2y agoVacuum tubes and remote control. https://diakont.com/nuclear-services/radiation-tolerant-cctv-system/ https://diakont.com/nuclear-services/radiation-tolerant-cctv...
- saalweachter 2y agoRadiation affects cameras.
- misnome 2y agoMaybe there might be radiation-hardened or tolerant cameras one could use?
- sandworm101 2y agoEndoscopes. A bundle of fiberoptic passively moves the image a few meters back to where a camera can run outside of the high radiation. Or even older-school, use mirrors/lenses/prisms as one would in a submarine's periscope to move the image far enough away.
- jjk166 2y agoThese robots are radiation hardened, and the levels of radiation are steadily decreasing. At some point it will inevitably become survivable.
- johnea 2y agoExactly! we just need to try again in 10,000 years...
- BurningFrog 2y agoI don't know the numbers, but it's much less! Because if an isotope emits high radiation, it will "burn out" relatively fast. If it lasts thousands of years, it does it by emitting low radiation. And, yes, I know this is a serious comment to sarcasm, but I feel educational today...
- lainga 2y agoSee the 7-10 rule (of murky and apparently empirical provenance), although this is for fission products of a bomb, not melted fuel https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/336049/can-the-7-10-rule-of-thumb-for-radiation-be-understood-theoretically https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/336049/can-the-7...
- godelski 2y ago> Because if an isotope emits high radiation, it will "burn out" relatively fast > but I feel educational today... To help people get intuition about this remember that energy is conserved. Radiation can come in multiple forms: alpha (2 protons and 2 neutrons), beta (electron or positron), or gamma (high energy "light"). At each decay even the original atom MUST lose energy, and thus, mass (thanks Einstein!). Alpha is pretty common (how Uranium-238 decays into Thorium-234, in 4.4e9 years, releasing 4.2 MeV of energy[0]). But also note that this is large and that's why it can be stopped pretty easily (unless the MeV is very high). Beta decay is a bit trickier because it can be either a positron or electron, but the process is quite similar. In both alpha and beta decay there's a clear mass being ejected from the atom (and along with it, energy). An example of beta decay is when Thorium-234 decays into Protactinium-234m (m for "metastable") in 24.1 days but with only 0.27MeV (you can tell here thought that this decay releases more energy over time, despite being a lower amount of energy released per decay event). Protactinium-234m then has a VERY short half-life of 1.16 minutes releasing 2.27MeV per event, turning into Protactinium-234, which also has a short half-life of 6.7 hrs, giving off 2.2 MeV of beta- (electron) decay, turning into Uranium-234, which has a long half-life of 2.45e5 years. I think this last example is where people get confused, because we went from Uranium to Uranium, right? But the numbers are important! Uranium-238 to Uranium-234! Those are the number of neutrons in each atom. Uranium-234 is much more stable. (I need to also note that there are some long lived products with high energies, but this is far more complicated than we have time for in this already long comment. We'd have to also discuss biological half-lives if we're going to talk about that. And someone will mention stuff about boars and mushrooms, and not understand) The other confusing part is waste and composition of waste[1]. It's important to note that 90% of waste is "low level", which are things like clothing or tools, and only contain 1% of the total radiation in waste. This stuff is readily disposed of, and the truth here is that were this to all get lost, there would be no real serious danger posed to any{one,thing}. We like to be on the safe side with nuclear, and for good reason (this is again, complicated). But the AMOUNT of waste is __VERY__ little > On average, the waste from a reactor supplying a person’s electricity needs for a year would be about the size of a brick. Only 5 grams of this is high-level waste – about the same weight as a sheet of paper. And, > Unlike any other energy generating industry, the nuclear sector takes full responsibility for all of its waste. So this needs to be remembered when comparing competing energies. This is a common misconception when comparing and people without actual domain expertise here naively look at data and don't understand the assumptions of that data (I'm looking at us, HN...). And it is more complicated than just comparing the full waste generation from solar vs nuclear (as a far too common example. Which these technologies don't compete!) So TLDR: The decay can be simply thought of as "high energy, short lived" while the rest is actually incredibly complicated and exceptional levels of nuance are required for actually making good comparisons. This last part isn't isolated to nuclear technologies and is a common logic failure of many internet warriors. TTLDR: shit is complicated, don't talk about complicated stuff if you're passion doesn't align with your efforts to educate yourself and understand the nuance. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#Uranium_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#Uranium_series [1] https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear-waste-and-what-do-we-do-with-it https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear...
- HPsquared 2y agoVacuum tubes are pretty radiation-proof. It depends how primitive you want to get with the electronics.
- guerrilla 2y agoVacuum tubes are generally big, high voltage and require large power supplies; so pretty terrible for robots.
- dylan604 2y agoNot if you're building Mechzilla. There's plenty of room for them at that scale!!!
- pjc50 2y agoObviously you solve this by using nuclear power for the robot. /s
- HPsquared 2y agoPower supply etc would be external. They would have absolutely minimal electronics onboard, I was referring specifically to camera tubes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_camera_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_camera_tube
- guerrilla 2y agoNow I want one of these.
- strangattractor 2y agoThe Russians developed a way to deal with this at Chernobyl - send in people. They also use this method to deal with bullets and artillery in Ukraine.
- moffkalast 2y agoWhen all you have is people, all problems look like they need some people thrown at them.
- jes5199 2y agoif there really is a humanoid-robot-powered labor transition in the next decade or two, your comment will take on strange new prescience
- moffkalast 2y agoYea I have two things on my 50 years bingo chart: supporting unemployable people through UBI/bullshit jobs by reallocating the profits from automated production, or getting rid of them through wars, famine, etc. until only the capital owners remain. Still waiting on which one it'll be. Probably both to some extent.
- jes5199 2y agothe only idea I have on how to improve the outcome here is normalizing things like Gofundme and Patreon and just in general transferring wealth from people who hit the automation jackpot to people who don't. But things are going to get weird and it's hard to predict the social consequences. Maybe robots get so cheap that there's no reason the have-nots don't have them, too (like today with smartphones and cars) and then there's no famine because food production is so easy with automation (???)
- tehjoker 2y agothey sent in people only when the situation absolutely required it. they tried a robot and it burned out
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoIt also degrades metal and concrete. That was a big problem with the Chernobyl reactor. The temporary sarcophagus was almost rubble, when they put up the big quonset hut.