Robotics facilities
Our facilities are amongst the best in the world for developing remote handling robotics.
From our main building, we design, build and test systems essential to the future of fusion energy and beyond.
We operate on the UKAEA’s site at Culham, Oxfordshire in a state-of-the-art building. Our spaces are available for collaborative projects.
The RACE workhall
The RACE workhall includes:
- a 2000 m2 multifunctional hangar with two 20-tonne gantry cranes
- reconfigurable robotic cells, hosting a variety of equipment
- multi-functional control rooms for remote operations trials
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) test lanes for unmanned vehicles to test mobility, dexterity, load bearing and reliability
National Nuclear User Facility for Hot Robotics
RACE acts as the primary hub of the National Nuclear User Facility for Hot Robotics (NNUF-HR), a programme which supports UK academia and industry to access robotics, sensors and control rooms.
If you’re looking for a specific set-up to test robotics hardware or software, we can facilitate your work through the programme.
Autonomous vehicle development
The UK government site in Culham hosts 10 km of roads. The site is fenced and secure, and is subject to National Highways laws, making it an ideal location for testing connected autonomous vehicles.
RAICo1
UKAEA is a founding member of RAICo1, a collaborative research and development and testing facility in Whitehaven, Cumbria.
With our world-class facilities at RACE, we can test and evaluate any robotic system for fusion and beyond. The variety of what we can test here is massive! From mock-ups of fusion plant components, to enabling mobile robot to autonomously operate and gather data in a real world setting, through to handling, haptics, VR – we do anything and everything ‘robot’. There’s always something fascinating being trialled in the building.
