A new positioning method for remotely operated vehicle of the nuclear power plant

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a new positioning method for remotely operated vehicle (ROV) in the nuclear power plant. The ROV of the nuclear power plant is developed to inspect the reactor cavity pools, the component pools and spent-fuel storage pools. To enhance the operational safety, the ability of localizing the ROV is indispensable. Design/methodology/approach: Therefore, the positioning method is proposed based on the MEMS inertial measurement unit and mechanical scanning sonar in this paper. Firstly, the ROV model and on board sensors are introduced in detail. Then the sensor-based Kalman filter is deduced for attitude estimation. After that, the positioning method is proposed that divided into static positioning and dynamic positioning. The improved iterative closest point-Kalman filter is deduced to estimate the global position by the whole circle scanning sonar data in static, and the relative positioning method is proposed by the small scale scanning sonar data in dynamic. Findings: The performance of the proposed method is verified by comparing with the visual positioning system. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is proved by the experiment in the reactor simulation pool of the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant. Originality/value: The research content of this manuscript is aimed at the specific application needs of nuclear power plants and has high theoretical significance and application value.