Nuclear fusion testing facility eyes autonomous vehicles industry

Fusion research is leading to spin-off technology that could make autonomous vehicles a reality in a shorter time frame. Stuart Nathan reports. 

Nuclear fusion is often criticised as being a never-ending research project, whose only payoff – though undoubtedly enticing – is always 30 years away. However, at the UK centre for fusion research, the site of the world’s largest fusion reactor and the only one currently capable of actual fusion, the Joint European Torus (JET) at Culham in Oxfordshire, the perpetual research project is having real-world payoffs, albeit in unexpected places.

The key to this is RACE-Test, the testing facility for remote applications in challenging environments (RACE). Originating in the research effort to support the development of robotic devices for maintaining and installing equipment inside the cramped and dangerous confines of a fusion reactor – the materials of the reactor shell become activated by the neutron bombardment triggered by the nuclear fusion reaction – RACE-Test is now involved in a series of projects both inside and outside the fusion application.