Contamination Mapping and Visualisation SystemCopy Link

The iX challenge competition, delivered by the KTN, is supporting Tier 1 and Tier 2 companies (the Challenge Owner) to identify innovative solutions to their challenges. Those organisations which are selected by the challenge owner as offering the most promising solutions will be able to pitch to an expert panel, with a view to a potential commercial opportunity to deliver their solution.  They will also receive support from KTN and the wider Innovate UK network.

Background 

The KTN innovation Exchange (KTN-iX) programme is working alongside a major nuclear engineering company that provides its services to a range of UK and international clients. This company is looking to engage innovators and innovative companies that can help them improves its services in relation to health & safety monitoring activities. 

The company has teams of nuclear health & safety specialists who provide radiological monitoring services at the workface within the nuclear industry to protect people, plant and the environment from the negative effects of ionising radiation and contamination.  They use specialist instrumentation, such as hand-held monitors, to take readings of surface contamination levels. All readings must be recorded accurately and responded to accordingly.

This challenge is to identify technologies to work in combination with the current monitoring activities and find a solution of mapping the measurements and providing real time visual and point cloud data of a building surface whilst reducing complexity and eliminating errors in the data collection process.    

It is expected that solutions may exist in some of the following sectors:

• Oil and Gas sector (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) waste)
• Computing and Gaming
• Virtual/Augmented Reality engineering
• Robotics
• Machine vision 
• Health and Safety
• Defence & Security
• Sensors and Advanced Imaging
• Optical Sensing
• Analytical Instrument Manufacturer
• Nuclear Medical / Healthcare sector
• Surveying

To meet the desired timescale and risks, it is preferred that the proposed solution, or the key part(s) of the solution, has been previously demonstrated in an industrial environment (>TRL 3).  The solution should be achievable within health and safety requirements and regulations.

Rationale:

1. Reduced surveying time and costs
2. Improved quality assurance and safety
3. Store, manage and provide trend data

The challenge owner is actively looking for solutions that will;

1. Be highly portable, preferably handheld
2. Enable storage and analysis of records/data
3. Operating in varied conditions; of particular interest are ‘extreme’ light levels, from buildings with no artificial lighting through to very well-lit buildings using site lighting. 
4.  Ideally be passively cooled as it will be deployed in contamination environments where active cooling would render units as waste.
5. Record the location (map) of the measurements
6. Provide real time visual and point cloud data 

The challenge owner will not consider solutions that involve: 

• Anything that cannot be operated in a variety of environments
• Anything that is not portable and easily used by one person
• Anything requiring a fan for cooling.

There may be difficulties with Cloud access from some locations, download of data may need to be from a fixed system.

Rewards and benefits

Successful applicants will be given an opportunity to pitch to the challenge holder. The package may also include:

• Support from the challenge owner to develop / commercialise the technology
• Support in the development of a prototype or pilot study 
• A potential business collaboration
• Support from KTN to identify development funding opportunities 
• Technical support
• A place at KTN or Catapult events

Solution Requirements

Functional Requirements

• Geo-referencing, time-stamping and recording the outputs of a handheld device (weighing ~1kg) interfaced by short range wireless technology
• Providing an optical, and point cloud map of the surface
• Support in maintaining the detectors fixed distance, in all 3 axes, from the building surface (± 2.5mm) [desirable]
• Repeating a survey and overlaying results to identify differences between surveys
• Being imported into a BIM model
• Being compatible with systems such as Autodesk and Unity 3D
• Carrying out image stitching (can be via post processing)
• Providing real time information to the operator, possibly via smart glasses or similar 
• Ideally being hand-held and moved across a surface at speed (typically 1cm/sec).

Technical Characteristics

• A system with as few components as possible
• No cooling fans
• Ability to store data locally and / or communicate via Wi-Fi or similar communication protocols outside of the building during operation
• Must have the capability to encrypt data
• A battery powered system

Operating Conditions

• Capable of deployment and operation in dirty and poorly lit environments
• Capable of working indoors and outdoors
• Building surfaces may be cementitious or steel and maybe painted
• Environment may contain radiation
• Operators may be wearing air-fed protective suits and gloves
• Working at temperatures from ambient up to 40°C

Deployment Timescale

• Launch of the Competition: 9th March 2020
• Deadline for applications: 15th May 2020
• Selection and notification of finalists: 5th June 2020
• Finalist’s panel workshop: 23rd June 2020
• Solutions should be: Validation of solution: within 6 months; Field trials: within 1 year; Commercial implementation: within 18 months (quicker if possible)

Cost requirement and market opportunity

• There are many industrial national and international sites where this technology has application leading to a market opportunity of 100’s of units.
• Units are not expected to exceed £7,500 in order to be deemed competitive when compared to existing solutions. 

Eligibility and assessment criteria

Entrants to this competition must be:

• Established businesses, start-ups, SMEs or individual entrepreneurs
• UK based or have the intention to set up a UK base

Applications will be assessed on:

• Relevance to the topic
• Innovative nature of the subject
• Coherence of the proposed business model
• Feasibility/ economic viability
• Development potential
• Maturity of project/solution
• Ability to launch project quickly/Ease of implementation
• Price/quality ratio
• Suitability for the global market

IP and Potential Commercial Route

• Existing background IP associated with a potential solution will remain with Solution Provider(s). Where any new IP generation is envisaged, it will be subject to the mutual IP agreement of the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger.
• The challenge owner has background IP in the field protected by patent. Any commercial deployment of transferred solution or newly developed solution, through licensing, joint venture, partnership or direct investment, will be subject to the commercial agreement between the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger.
• Where necessary, a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) may be signed to uphold confidentiality in the engagement between the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger.
• Innovate UK and KTN do not take any share of IP ownership or enter into commercial venture through the iX programme.

Points to clarify for KTN-iX Challenge: Contamination Mapping and Visualisation System Subject, version 2

Question:  "Units are not expected to exceed £7,500 in order to be deemed competitive when compared to existing solutions." Is this the total price ie proposed solution + detector or just for the solution (added tech)? 

Answer: £7.5k is excluding the detectors 

Question:  What is the required spatial resolution of the wand position? Roughly, microns, cm, tens cm?

Answer: In X and Y (i.e. across the surface) – <3cm; In Z (i.e. distance from surface) – ideally <1cm 

Question:  What’s the distance between the wand and the surface and what’s the tolerance

Answer: The distance between the detection surface and the surface being monitored should be less than 1cm. 

Question: How big is the area to be surveyed, is it the interior of my kitchen or the interior of Notre Dame cathedral?

Answer: The area being surveyed can be from small (1 wall, 5m wide x 3m high) to very large, whole building made up of many rooms (all walls up to 10m high or more). It is imagined this would be done through a series of measurements which could be stitched together, and ideally presentable in BIM. 

Question: Is a robotic solution of interest in the long run?

Answer: Potentially – yes. 

Question: Will an existing contamination sensor be provided/assumed, or should we provide one as part of the solution?

Answer: The contamination sensor will be provided/assumed. 

Question: Is it 1kg only for hand-held device, so that a laptop/tablet can be ‘specced’ to be carried in a backpack? Or should the complete solution weight no more than ~1kg?

Answer: The weight of the hand-held part should be less than 1kg; any data gathering done by a laptop can be stood-off / not carried by the surveyor. 

Question: What information needs to be provided to the operator in real time? We note from the call text that some of the operations can be done during post-processing step (image stitching).

Answer: The area surveyed, against the are visualised, i.e. has there been complete coverage, and ideally an indication of the levels of contamination for any given point. 

Question: For the required speed, does it mean that operator will walk / move around at 1 cm/s? Is this current practice?

Answer: The operator will move a handheld device over a surface at 1cm/s; this is current practice. 

Question: Battery-powered system - what is the expected duration of a single inspection?

Answer: Expected duration would be 4 hours if they can be changed; 10 hours if they cannot. 

Question: Is it correct to assume that inspector/operator will have a torch to light the path they walk?

Answer: It should be expected that there would be enough light to see by, but that the levels may vary considerably across the working surface (e.g. walls) 

Question: Can data be transmitted, or should they be stored locally on the handheld device?

Answer: Transmitted to be able to provide real-time feedback; local storage could also be used for the event of dropped connections. 

Question: Image stitching. Does this assume that he challenge owner also requires RGB images? Or by images are they referring to something else like point clouds and sensor data fusion?

Answer: Visual images of the surfaces being surveyed are a must have. Point cloud information onto which the contamination data was overlaid are very desirable. 

Question: Does the solution need to be ATEX rated and/or IP rated since it might be washed down?

Answer: No ATEX rating is required. IP rating of 65 or similar would be ideal to minimise / eliminate the potential ingress of contamination. 

Question: Can we have an overview of the inspection process? How long does it take? What are the most important features which characterise the contamination?

Answer: The survey process of typically done by the square metre using a 100cm² to 200cm² detector. The detector is moved over the surface at a rate of ~1cm/s meaning each part of the area is under the detector for ~10s.