Drones to Map Radioactive Waste Storage Vault

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby

Flyability’s Elios 3 has successfully completed a 3D mapping operation of a radioactive waste storage vault following more than a year of preparation and research. The information obtained in the mapping project will prove crucial to planning the vault’s removal. This is thought to be the first time a drone has been deployed to enter a high-level radioactive waste storage vault.

The mission was conducted last November at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center at the Idaho National Laboratory Site by a team of roughly 50 people, who covered the top of the vault with a plastic tent to guarantee the mission took place indoors as per FAA regulations and Department of Energy (DOE) requirements, and who operated a crane to lift the vault’s lid and hatch.

If the drone was lost during the mission, it would not be possible to retrieve…