RADIATION HARDENED ROBOT POSITIONER FOR TEST SAMPLES IN PROTON EXPERIMENTS

A ROBOTIC POSITIONER WILL BE DEVELOPED FOR HANDLING AND CHANGING DEVICES TO BE TESTED (DUTS) IN HAZARDOUS RADIATION ENVIRONMENTS SUCH AS THAT FOUND INSIDE THE TEST CELL OF THE BROOKHAVEN NATION LABORATORY PROTON ACCELERATOR. PRESENTLY, PERSONNEL SAFETY INDICATES A LONG "COOLING" TIME BEFORE TEST FIXTURES CAN BE ACCESSED. THIS RESULTS IN LOWERED FACILITY USEFULNESS, INCREASED REAL FACILITY COSTS AND CONSIDERABLE FRUSTRATION FOR USERS. THIS POSITIONER WILL GREATLY LOWER TURN-AROUND TIME BETWEEN TESTS AND SIMULTANEOUSLY INCREASE PERSONNEL SAFETY.