From August 22-23, Dr. Craig Marianno, TEES Nuclear Security Science and Policy (NSSPI) deputy director and an assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University, along with undergraduate nuclear engineering student Dan Murchison, participated in the “Science and Safety: Robotics Challenge” organized by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management. They gave a demonstration of a radiation detection platform built by Marianno’s research group, which was mounted on a PackBot, a robot designed and built by Endeavor Robotics. The PackBots have four cameras onboard, five sensors, and can travel up to distances of 800 meters away with a directional antenna. They can be deployed for mobile radiation detection and also for moving items into or out of an area. The project is a collaboration between Marianno, Dr. Robin Murphy, professor of computer science and engineering at Texas A&M, and Adventgx, a company based in Bryan, Texas.
