Drones in fusion: A first-of-its-kind aerial inspection at JET

Drones mounted with cameras and sensors are ideal for inspection of elevated structures and confined spaces. In recent years, they have been adopted by industries from construction to oil and gas for structural assessment, asset monitoring, and safety inspections. They remove the need for humans to climb onto roofs and into shafts – with all the associated safety assessments and temporary infrastructure – and in some cases open areas for inspection that are not reachable by conventional means.

But deploying an unmanned aerial vehicle in a controlled area – a zone with safety rules to minimise human radiation exposure – needs careful planning and consideration.

This is the case in JET (Joint European Torus) at Culham Campus, which was formerly a world-leading fusion research facility, and is now in the early stages of being decommissioned and repurposed by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), under the JET Decommissioning and Repurposing (JDR) programme.

Due to JET’s complex, crowded, and highly sensitive environments, the use of drones had been highly restricted, despite the obvious value of remote inspection. But late in 2025, history was made with the first JET inspection drone flights – first in October as a derisking exercise in the JET in-vessel training facility, then in the JET assembly hall, and finally around the exterior of the JET torus itself, between 25 and 26 November.

The project takes shape

The flights were jointly conducted to gather data to serve the needs of four parties. The Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Collaboration (RAICo) led a project to conduct inspection flights, with the aim of gathering safety inspection data and establishing the processes to support future inspections as it proceeds along its decommissioning journey.

At the same time, a separate collaboration between UKAEA’s RACE, Eni and EniProgetti, supported by RINA, explored how they could use drones, alongside other inspection systems, to enable rapid checks of fusion devices and help verify system readiness. This approach aims to significantly shorten the time required for these assessments, a critical step for meeting the stringent reliability standards demanded by commercial fusion power plants. They were also keen to further understand the use of aerial drones for rapid inspection of fusion facilities, to complement ground-based inspection techniques.

The teams came together to conduct joint flights to meet their respective goals.

To ensure safety, the teams conducted a detailed risk assessment, secured access permissions, completed local inductions and implemented safety measures, including post-flight contamination swabbing.

On the day, the flights used a Flyability Elios 3 drone which undertook over thirty flights of 6 to 7 minutes (the limit of a single battery) in the torus hall.

The drone is equipped with built-in camera and LiDAR, and radiation sensors were added as a payload, which let it gather detailed data and high-resolution imagery. It is surrounded by a lightweight soft cage, allowing it to operate near sensitive structures without risk to itself or its surroundings.

What we learned from flying drones in JET

These flights demonstrated that drones could operate for meaningful durations, manoeuvre safely in cluttered areas, and gather high-quality visual, spatial, and radiation data for inspection and planning.

The test addressed key safety concerns. For example, drone propellers create downdrafts that disturb dust, which can lead to contamination risks. To address this, additional safety processes were implemented to mitigate potential health hazards. These measures built confidence among JDR stakeholders that the drones could be operated safely.

The RAICo team also used the opportunity to carry out a real inspection of high-up junction boxes. That data proved useful, highlighting minor maintenance issues.

How these flights support fusion machine maintenance and decommissioning

The flights successfully demonstrated that drone-based imaging and inspection can be performed safely to support JDR activities and provided valuable learnings for future flights.

If adopted, drones could save time and money. For example, they would avoid the need to carefully erect scaffolding to inspect equipment at height, which is time-consuming in a controlled area. The initial inspection data captured from the flight, which has already improved one aspect of maintenance, hints at the wider potential.

These flights and the lessons learned pave the way for aerial drone use at JET, and in fusion engineering and decommissioning more widely. This aims to lead to enhanced situational awareness, reduced inspection time and downtime, and better data quality that can be easily integrated into a digital environment and artificial intelligence models. All of that will be achieved whilst reducing the need for people to enter harmful environments.